LEH: Things might just finally be looking up for the Ladakh Urial. From being on the verge of extinction a few decades ago when barely a hundred grazed on the banks of the Indus and Shyok rivers in the cold desert region of Ladakh, the numbers have risen. These are the estimates of Dr Bindu Raghavan, who conducted a survey of the Ladah Urial (Ovis vignei vignei) along the river Indus in June-July 2002.The survey was funded by the Wildlife Trust of India as part of a Rapid Action Project (RAP) supported by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. Raghavan, a veterinarian, is an M Sc student of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), was looking for an optimum site for further study, supervised by Dr Yashveer Bhatnagar, an expert in high altitude fauna. The Ladakh Urial has never been studied before and the WTI-DSCF funding will make possible the first study of this critically endangered animal. What is available for research now are only a handful of anecdotal notes.

Ladakh is unique not only in its geomorphology but also in the diversity of the fauna and flora it holds. The trans-himalyan region, of which Ladakh is a part, has the distinction of supporting the maximum diversity of wild sheep and goats, including the Urial. The Ladakh Urial, or ‘Shapo’ as it is called locally, is a highly threatened subspecies of the Urial. It is endemic to Ladakh and is listed in the IUCN Red List 2000. Hunting of the Shapo (female= Shamo) had been rampant and numbers had dwindled to about a few hundred a few decades back. Raghavan’s preliminary survey seems to indicate that the previously reported estimate of 1500 animals seems to be correct and the population seems to be stable, if not increasing.”

In the 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Ladakh Urial was listed in the EN C2a category, and its population was estimated to be around 1,500. According to this category, the population is estimated to number less than 2,500 mature individuals, and shows a continuing decline, observed, projected, or inferred, in numbers of mature individuals and population structure in the form of a severely fragmented (i.e. no subpopulation estimated to contain more than 250 mature individuals) subpopulation.

Although published reports indicate Shapos’ distribution along the banks of both the Indus and Shyok rivers, this survey was restricted to the Indian side of the line of control of the former. The areas covered under the survey comprised Miru, Nimmu, Basgo, Liker, Alchi, Saspol, Hemis Shukhpachan, Khalsi (Nyarmu village), Lamayuru to Wanla path, Kanji, Fotu la, Tsipskianchan, and Potortse village (below Nindum peak). The survey mainly focused on interviews with villagers to understand their agro-pastoral lifestyle and interactions with wild animals.

Raghavan collected information regarding livestock holding patterns, grazing patterns, occurrence of wild animals, occurrence and abundance of Urial, interactions of livestock with the Urial, interactions of livestock with other wild animals, problems faced by the villagers, among other things. Wherever possible, fixed (vantage) point counts were performed in the early morning and evening hours to get an idea of the encounter rates (probability of sighting) of Shapo in the area.