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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Note First photographic record of Mishmi Takin Budorcus taxicolor taxicolor and Red Goral Nemorhaedus baileyi from Kamlang Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India Cheshta Singh & Deept Gupta 26 July 2021 | Vol. 13 | No. 8 | Pages: 19149–19152 DOI: 10.11609/jot.7059.13.8.19149-19152 For Focus, Scope, Aims, and Policies, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/aims_scope For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/policies_various For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. 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Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 July 2021 | 13(8): 19149–19152 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) OPEN ACCESS htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.7059.13.8.19149-19152 #7059 | Received 06 January 2021 | Final received 15 March 2021 | Finally accepted 30 June 2021 NOTE First photographic record of Mishmi Takin Budorcus taxicolor taxicolor and Red Goral Nemorhaedus baileyi from Kamlang Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India Cheshta Singh 1 & Deept Gupta 2 1 Divisional Forest Ofcer, Kamlang Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary Division, Lohit, Arunachal Pradesh 792102, India. 2 Wildlife Insttute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Utarakhand 248001, India. 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected] The landscape of northeastern India is a highly Tiger Reserve to the south. The total area of KTR is 783 diverse and a species-rich area. There are many species km2, which includes a core area of 696 km2 and a bufer which are not systematcally surveyed in this region. This area of 87 km2. Many perennial rivers like Lang, Lathi, has led to a far lesser number of records of species than Kamlang, Sinabarai, Tawa, and Lai fow from the reserve. what are actually present in this region. To overcome Glaw lake is a perennial lake at an alttude of 1,168 this, it is essental to increase the intensity of surveys and m. The major indigenous communites inhabitng this their scientfc documentaton. It will help in increasing region are the Digaru-Mishmi and Mizu-Mishmi. the awareness of these species which is essental for The reserve has rugged terrain with an alttudinal saving them from the threats of habitat fragmentaton, gradient of 500–4,500 m. KTR represents one of the bio- climatc changes, and risks faced through huntng cases. diversity hotspots of India, Himalaya, which supports Over the last two-and-a-half decades, advancements of many elusive and rarely sighted mammals, birds, and various noninvasive techniques such as camera trapping other taxa. This area lacks systematc scientfc surveys has strengthened the sampling procedure and approach mainly due to extremely complex terrain and hence is to reliable scientfc data with reducton of tme, eforts, very less known for its biodiversity. Kaul & Haridasan and cost. Camera traps have nowadays become very (1987) have classifed forests of Arunachal Pradesh into useful to study cryptc and elusive species. six categories, viz., tropical, subtropical, temperate, Kamlang Tiger Reserve (KTR) (Figure 1), situated in alpine, subalpine, and secondary forest, out of which KTR southeastern part of Lohit District, Arunachal Pradesh contains tropical wet evergreen forests, tropical semi- was declared a tger reserve in 2017. It is surrounded evergreen forests, sub-tropical semi evergreen forests, by the Kamlang Reserve Forest to the west and north, moist bamboo forests, Himalayan moist temperate un-classed state forest (USF) to the east and Namdapha forests, and moist alpine scrub forest. Editor: Anonymity requested. Date of publicaton: 26 July 2021 (online & print) Citaton: Singh, C. & D. Gupta (2021). First photographic record of Mishmi Takin Budorcus taxicolor taxicolor and Red Goral Nemorhaedus baileyi from Kamlang Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(8): 19149–19152. htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.7059.13.8.19149-19152 Copyright: © Singh & Gupta 2021. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: This work was funded by Natonal Tiger Conservaton Authority and Environment and Forest Department, Arunachal Pradesh. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Acknowledgements: The camera trapping exercise has been atempted for the frst tme in this region. We thank Natonal Tiger Conservaton Authority for funding support and Environment and Forest department of Arunachal Pradesh for facilitatng this work. We thank the range forest ofcer, Kamlang Tiger Reserve for encouraging the feld staf. We are grateful to the feld staf mainly the Project Tiger protecton squad for their contributon in the feld work despite facing a challenging terrain. 19149 J TT Photographic record of Mishmi Takin and Red Goral from Kamlang TR Singh & Gupta 96°25'0"E 96°30'0"E 96°35'0"E 96°40'0"E 96°45'0"E 96°50'0"E / India Arunachal Pradesh 27°55'0"N 27°55'0"N Legend 27°50'0"N Kamlang TR 27°50'0"N Camera trap location Mishmi Takin capture site Red Goral capture site Elevation Value High : 4549 27°45'0"N 27°45'0"N Low : 424 27°40'0"N 27°40'0"N 4 2 0 4 8 12 Kilometers 96°25'0"E 96°30'0"E 96°35'0"E 96°40'0"E 96°45'0"E 96°50'0"E Figure 1. Camera trap locatons in Kamlang Tiger Reserve. A sign survey exercise was carried out for the an occasion, a female was captured with fawn which is frst tme in a partcular region of KTR, which falls in a sign of breeding range in the area. Red Goral has been Anjaw District, along the northeastern boundary of categorized as a Vulnerable species in the IUCN red list the reserve. Based on the inputs received from the with less than 10,000 mature individuals lef worldwide. local people and the results of sign survey, this region The presence of this species has been reported from seemed to be diversity rich. We therefore carried out a Dibang, Changlang (Data et al. 2008) and Lohit valley camera trapping exercise for surveying this region. Nine (Nijhawan 2020) before but no photographic records Cuddeback camera traps were deployed over a period have been reported from KTR so far. The Red Goral of 77 days (Total trap nights= 693), due to limitatons remains poorly studied due to its narrow geographic of terrain accessibility and suitability of season. We range and low populaton estmates (Singh 2002). considered a single trap night to be an occasion for This species prefers a forested habitat, meadow, and example if an individual/group of animals was captured scrublands with alttudinal range from 2,000 to 4,500 m. once in 24 hours it was counted as an occasion. We used We captured its presence at an elevaton of 3,410 m. The occasion as a unit to avoid false count from the multple forest type is mainly sub-alpine in this area. This species capture of grazing herbivores. Our trap sites fall in the contnues to face threats due to habitat fragmentaton, moist alpine scrub forest type. No camera traps had illegal huntng, and infrastructure developments (Sung been previously deployed in this partcular region. It was et al. 1997) and hence, needs immediate atenton thus selected as a site for camera trap deployment to for conserving its range. As KTR is being reported its capture and understand the species that could be found breeding range, conservaton practces should be here. focused in this region. We captured a lesser known ungulate Red Goral We also captured another lesser known species Nemorhaedus baileyi (Bailey 1912) on two occasions in Mishmi Takin Budorcas taxicolor taxicolor (Image 1), Anjaw District on a high-alttude ridge area (Image 2). On which has been listed as vulnerable in IUCN Red List (Song 19150 Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 July 2021 | 13(8): 19149–19152 Photographic record of Mishmi Takin and Red Goral from Kamlang TR Singh & Gupta J TT Table 1. Details of camera trapping in reference to the species captured during sampling. Number of occasions on Species Total number of captures Alttude (m) which species was captured 1 Red Goral 2 8 3410 2 Mishmi Takins 16 165 3470 3 Barking Deer 1 1 3215 4 Yellow-throated Marten 7 8 3432 5 Hoary-bellied Squirrel 3 7 3248 Image 1. Mishmi Takin Budorcas taxicolor taxicolor captured in a camera trap. Image 2. Red Goral Nemorhaedus baileyi (female) captured in a camera trap. et al. 2008). It is distributed at the northeastern tp of et al. (2019). We captured 165 photographs on 16 trap India, however, precise geographic distributon in India occasions at an alttude of 3,470 m.