Valley
Kathmandu to have first wildlife ambulance service
The National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) is planning to hand over what will be the country’s first ever wildlife ambulance to the Kathmandu District Forest Office in an effort to improve animal rescue service.The National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) is planning to hand over what will be the country’s first ever wildlife ambulance to the Kathmandu District Forest Office in an effort to improve animal rescue service.
The ambulance have all the necessary rescue and veterinary equipment to deal with the emergency concerning wildlife, said District Forest Officer Indra Sapkota.
“It will be first of its kind ambulance in the country that will be used to rescue wild animals,” he said.
The NTNC’s assistance to the DFO is part of the project on “Problematic Wild Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation in and around Kathmandu Valley” that was signed in 2014 to reduce the impact of human-wildlife conflict through preventive and mitigation measures.
Activities ranging from raising public awareness and education, enhancing the capacity of rescuers and technical staff to purchase of a wildlife ambulance are included in the project.
The ambulance is currently at the NTNC. The handover will take place once the approval related to siren installation and other regulations have been approved.
The wildlife ambulance will be a key to work on rescue and rehabilitation of injured, orphan and sick wildlife.
“The number of cases of injured and orphan wildlife, particularly leopards is increasing recently. We have vehicles at Central Zoo that we use whenever there is any event related to wildlife emergency. But we cannot act promptly as the vehicles do not come with the rescue gears and medicines,” said Radha Krishna Gharti, a senior veterinarian with Central Zoo. A total six leopards were rescued and brought to Central Zoo in Jawalakhel in the fiscal year 2015/16.