More than 650 hectares of Uttarakhand land in grip of forest fires
Though no loss of life has been reported so far, officials say with the rise in mercury level the blaze is going out of control.
A forest staff team, patrolling in the Valley of Flowers in district Chamoli, found pugmarks of snow leopards, recently. Located at an altitude of 3,352 to 3,658 meters above sea level, the Valley of Flower is a world heritage site, famous for its natural beauty. The team of forest department found pugmarks of two snow leopards near Ghangaria. The find has thrilled the park management and they are anxiously waiting for the summer to start when they will collect output of camera traps fixed in the park.
Brijmohan Bharti, Range officer of Valley of Flowers, says, “We have installed six camera traps in different parts of the park. The cameras were fixed in November and we will be gathering the digital data in April. Very recently our patrol team was at Ghangaria and found pugmarks of two snow leopards.”
The park is thrown open for tourists in 1 June annually. The Valley of Flowers is considered as a virtual paradise on earth. The valley had remained unknown to the outside world till the great mountaineer Frank S Smith discovered it in the year 1931.
Advertisement
Located in district Chamoli, Valley of Flower attracts tourists from far and near during its six-month long season. As a part of routine monitoring exercise the park management had installed six cameras last year. A major part of the park remains inaccessible due to heavy snowfall. The only occasional movement during winter is by forest department staff, conducting patrol.
The Valley of Flower management is on the seventh heaven these days as Ghangaria is located near habitat area. They expect to get many photographs and videos of snow leopards in camera trap this season. Even in 2018-19, the park management had installed camera taps and two snow leopards were captured on hidden camera. But this time the story is different and the park management has obtained evidence of rare snow leopard, through pug marks, without the help of camera traps.
Advertisement
