Animals

The opening of the new headquarters strengthens India’s position as a centre for international biodiversity cooperation. Through scientific exchanges, veterinary training, conservation capacity building and institutional partnerships, the alliance seeks to address challenges such as habitat fragmentation, illegal wildlife trade, human-wildlife conflict and declining populations of vulnerable big cat species.

The development highlights the importance of sustained habitat management and scientifically planned wildlife reintroductions. It also offers an encouraging example of how a species that disappeared from part of its historical range can gradually recover through coordinated conservation efforts.

The new assessment is particularly important because Karnataka contains some of India’s most productive tiger habitats, including the connected forests of Bandipur, Nagarahole, Biligiri Ranganatha Temple (BRT), Bhadra and Kali Tiger Reserves.

Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve was created by bringing together the Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary landscape and the Veerangana Durgavati Wildlife Sanctuary area.

Researchers found around 69 kids for every 100 adult females, along with approximately 33 adult males for every 100 females.

The development is significant because it reflects the emergence of a second generation within the reintroduced cheetah population. Successful reproduction by females born in India is an important indicator of adaptation to local conditions and the gradual establishment of a breeding population.

The species was documented in Kutch in 1872 by naturalist Ferdinand Stoliczka during his surveys of the region. Although there have been possible sightings in the decades since, forest officials said none had been conclusively confirmed until the latest encounter.

The recovery has also made India central to the global survival of the species. Assam alone now holds nearly 80 per cent of the world’s Greater One-Horned Rhino population.

The calf was born on September 11, 2026, at the Academic Dairy Farm after a laboratory-produced Badri embryo was transferred into a Sahiwal recipient cow. The achievement was announced by the government on September 12.