RANJHA: Total 72 wild animals in Banke National Park were killed in road accidents while 36 more were injured in road accident last year.
Speeding vehicles along the East-West highway passing through the Banke National Parks killed and injured the animals, according to Banke National Park Information officer, Bishnu Prasad Thapaliya.
The national park lacks adequate drinking water sources. As such the animals need to cross the road to go to the Rapti river to quench their thirst. The highway stretches up to 75 kilometres within the park area.
Frequency of road accidents involving wild animal has increased with the onset of the dry summer season.
Animals like the wild boar, spotted deer, swamp deer and monkey often get killed in road accidents. One or the other animal is found dead in road accident daily.
Statistics provided by the park officials shows that most number of accidents occur along the Obhari to Agaiya of Rapti Sonari rural municipality.
However, the park is not found taking action against the vehicles responsible for killing the wild animals.
Arresting the drivers of errant vehicles is a nuisance since they get the information on the death of wild animals late, according to Thapaliya. Most accidents involving the wild animals occur at night.
Thapaliya informed that the Park is mulling over to implement ‘time card’ system for vehicles and increasing the number of check posts within the park area. It is also planning to install CCTV cameras at several paces along the highway within the park.
The Banke National Park was set up nine years back with the main objective of conserving the endangered, Royal Bengal Tiger. The park is spread on an area of 550 square kilometers.
Wildlife conservation experts say that the tiger’s prey like the spotted deer, swamp deer and other herbivores are facing crisis due to the drying up of grass and vegetation and for lack of adequate water sources.
The Park has the plan of constructing more water ponds inside the park to address this problem, assistant conservation officer Purushottam Sharma said. There are 26 artificial ponds inside the park at present which are insufficient.
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