Kamrup (M) going to elect city animal

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 7: The Kamrup (M) district administration, along with State Forest Department, Assam State Biodiversity Board (ASBB) and NGO Help Earth, is going to select a special endangered animal for the city through online voting to generate mass awareness for conservation.

Talking to newsmen in the city today, Kamrup(M) DC M Angamuthu said: "Guwahati is probably the only metropolis in the world to have the privilege of being surrounded by 18 hills, two wildlife sanctuaries, eight reserve forests and a Ramsar Site all compressed within an area of 216 square kilometres. It is also a part of Indo-Burma Biodiversity hotspot, which includes 19 types of amphibians, 53 types of reptiles, 12 types of turtles and 200 species of birds. However, due to increasing population, the city is losing its various kinds of species every day. We, therefore, are going to take a step forward to know what is to be conserved and to identify organisms which need conservation attention and to highlight animals need to be conserved with these animals and urban biodiversity of Guwahati as a whole. We have taken three candidate animals with highest conservation concern to select as 'City's Animal' to make the Flagship animal of the city to carry out the endeavour of saving the urban wildlife. The three animals are Black Softshell Turtle which is also known as 'Borkaso', Greater Adjutant Stork also known as 'Hargila' and Gangetic River Dolphin also known as 'Xisu'."

"The voting process to select the city's animal has been started from today till April 30, 2016 midnight. People of the city can cast their votes in the website www.myanimal.in by including their mes and email ids. Based on the results, animals with highest votes will be declared as our City's Animal officially on May 22 on the occasion of World Biodiversity Day. The selected animal will be focused to conserve through awareness among people by various means like advertising, publicity and others. The website contains additiol information regarding urban animals of the city and about the three candidate animals along with video presentation," added Angamuthu.