Imphal, April 07: Under the joint initiative of Wild Life institute of India, Dehradun and Forests and Environment Department a three day survey and counting of Sangai has begun at the Keibul Lamjao National park today.

The previous practice of using choppers to record existing number of the brow antlered deer scientifically named cervus aldi aldi has been shelved in the current Sangai head-count exercise as new methods and latest gadgets are being employed for the purpose to minimise imminent disturbances caused to the park animals from the roaring machines.

Scanning of the 40 square kilometre national Park area is being conducted under two experts of the Dehradun institute assisted by its 31 volunteers, seven provided by Forests Department, 33 made up from various NGOs in addition to four environmentalists, two Manipur University representatives and same number of State's wild life enthusiasts.

The park area has been clustered into 24 blocks for the exercise.

Deputy Conservator of Forest (Park & Sanctuary) L Muhindro interacting with media persons at Keibul Lamjao expressed confidence of an increase in population of the rare species this time around compared to the latest survey record of 160 counted in 2003.Conveying that the ongoing survey would also include head-counts of kharsa (hog-deer) and wild boar with special emphasis on Sangai the forest department official recalled of kharsa recording higher growth in the previous exercise.

Narrating success story of the Sangai preservation and protection campaign he said only 14 Sangais could be detected in the mid 70s.Sharing with the mediamen difficulties faced in producing precise number of the deer species found only in the floating biomass of Loktak Lake Muhindro informed the current survey spanning three day would be conducted twice a day and would rely on arithmetic of average to pick out the figure.

He, however, hastened to add that promptly furnishing exact population count would be error prone.

Replying to a query the Deputy Conservator said volunteers involved in the survey were trained ahead of the exercise.

He also expressed joy that report of poaching in the sanctuary have declined encouragingly.

Informing that an NGO has proposed to resettle/shift the Sangais to a new suitable habitat within the State, Muhindro regretted that such a policy had not dawned upon the Government.

having personally experienced arduousness of scanning the deer species over the floating biomass, Dr SA Hussien of the Dehradun institute said an action plan in the near future to preserve the rare species is inevitable in view of rapid deterioration of the floating biomass resulting in reduction on the density and other problems.

It may be recalled that Keibul Lamjao was declared as a National park in 1977.The Sangai, the State animal of Manipur is an endangered species which is said to be found in Manipur.

The floating bio-mass or Phumdis of Keibul Lamjao on Loktak Lake is the natural habitat of this shy animal.

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