LaCONES or Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species, is a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research lab located in Hyderabad. It was conceptualised by Lalji Singh. [1] It is India's only research facility engaged in conservation and preservation of wildlife and its resources. It was established in 1998 with the help of Central Zoo Authority of India, CSIR and the government of Andhra Pradesh. It was dedicated to the nation in 2007 by then President of India APJ Abdul Kalam. It is a part of the Centre for cellular and molecular biology. India's first genetic bank for wildlife conservation, the National wildlife genetic resource bank (NWGRB) established by the government at LaCONES in 2018. [2]
Ex situ conservation literally means, "off-site conservation". It is the process of protecting an endangered species, variety or breed, of plant or animal outside its natural habitat; for example, by removing part of the population from a threatened habitat and placing it in a new location, an artificial environment which is similar to the natural habitat of the respective animal and within the care of humans, example are zoological parks and wildlife safaris. The degree to which humans control or modify the natural dynamics of the managed population varies widely, and this may include alteration of living environments, reproductive patterns, access to resources, and protection from predation and mortality. Ex situ management can occur within or outside a species' natural geographic range. Individuals maintained ex situ exist outside an ecological niche. This means that they are not under the same selection pressures as wild populations, and they may undergo artificial selection if maintained ex situ for multiple generations.
In-situ conservation is the on-site conservation or the conservation of genetic resources in natural populations of plant or animal species, such as forest genetic resources in natural populations of Teagan species. This process protects the inhabitants and ensures the sustainability of the environment and ecosystem.
Species reintroduction is the deliberate release of a species into the wild, from captivity or other areas where the organism is capable of survival. The goal of species reintroduction is to establish a healthy, genetically diverse, self-sustaining population to an area where it has been extirpated, or to augment an existing population. Species that may be eligible for reintroduction are typically threatened or endangered in the wild. However, reintroduction of a species can also be for pest control; for example, wolves being reintroduced to a wild area to curb an overpopulation of deer. Because reintroduction may involve returning native species to localities where they had been extirpated, some prefer the term "reestablishment".
The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology (MCBT) is a reptile zoo and herpetology research station, located 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of the city of Chennai, in state of Tamil Nadu, India. The centre is both a registered trust and a recognized zoo under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and comes under the purview of the Central Zoo Authority, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. It was established with the aim of saving three Indian endangered species of crocodile—the marsh or mugger crocodile, the saltwater crocodile, and the gharial, which at the time of founding of the trust were all nearing extinction.
The Asiatic lion is a population of Panthera leo leo that today survives in the wild only in India. Since the turn of the 20th century, its range has been restricted to Gir National Park and the surrounding areas in the Indian state of Gujarat. Historically, it inhabited much of southwest Asia to northern India.
Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems. Major threats to wildlife include habitat destruction, degradation, fragmentation, overexploitation, poaching, pollution and climate change. The IUCN estimates that 27,000 species of the ones assessed are at risk for extinction. Expanding to all existing species, a 2019 UN report on biodiversity put this estimate even higher at a million species. It is also being acknowledged that an increasing number of ecosystems on Earth containing endangered species are disappearing. To address these issues, there have been both national and international governmental efforts to preserve Earth's wildlife. Prominent conservation agreements include the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). There are also numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) dedicated to conservation such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, the Wild Animal Health Fund and Conservation International.
[[File:Entrance De Wildt Cheetah Research Centre, Soute conservation and preservation of the cheetah and the African wild dog.]] Captive breeding, also known as captive propagation, is the process of mai hate leila shes so weird xxintaining plants or animals in controlled environments, such as wildlife reserves, zoos, botanic gardens, and other conservation facilities. It is sometimes employed to help species that are being threatened by the effects of human activities such as climate change, habitat loss, fragmentation, over hunting or fishing, pollution, predation, disease, and parasitism.
National Chambal Sanctuary, also called the National Chambal Gharial Wildlife Sanctuary, is a 5,400 km2 (2,100 sq mi) tri-state protected area in northern India for the protection of the Critically Endangered gharial, the red-crowned roof turtle and the Endangered Ganges river dolphin. Located on the Chambal River near the tripoint of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, it was first declared in Madhya Pradesh in 1978, and now constitutes a long narrow eco-reserve co-administered by the three states. Within the sanctuary, the pristine Chambal River cuts through mazes of ravines and hills with many sandy beaches.
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology or CCMB is an Indian fundamental life science research establishment located in Hyderabad that operates under the aegis of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. CCMB is a designated "Centre of Excellence" by the Global Molecular and Cell Biology Network, UNESCO.
The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) is the body of the government of India responsible for oversight of zoos. It is an affiliate member of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA).
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) is an autonomous natural resource service institution established in 1982 under the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate change, Government of India. WII carries out wildlife research in areas of study like Biodiversity, Endangered Species, Wildlife Policy, Wildlife Management, Wildlife Forensics, Spatial Modeling, Ecodevelopment, Ecotoxicology, Habitat Ecology and Climate Change. WII has a research facility which includes Forensics, Remote Sensing and GIS, Laboratory, Herbarium, and an Electronic Library. The founder director was V. B. Saharia while the first Director was Hemendra Singh Panwar who remained the director from 1985 to 1994. Trained personnel from WII have contributed in studying and protecting wildlife in India. The national tiger census or the All India Tiger Estimation, is done by WII along with NTCA and state forest departments.
India is home to a large variety of wildlife. It is a biodiversity hotspot with its various ecosystems ranging from the Himalayas in the north to the evergreen rain forests in the south, the sands of the west to the marshy mangroves of the east. India lies within the Indomalayan realm and is the home to about 7.6% of mammal, 14.7% of amphibian, 6% of bird, 6.2% of reptilian, and 6.2% of flowering plant species. India's forest lands nurture about 500 species of mammals and more than 2000 bird species.
Genetic erosion is a process where the limited gene pool of an endangered species diminishes even more when reproductive individuals die off before reproducing with others in their endangered low population. The term is sometimes used in a narrow sense, such as when describing the loss of particular alleles or genes, as well as being used more broadly, as when referring to the loss of a phenotype or whole species.
A frozen zoo is a storage facility in which genetic materials taken from animals are stored at very low temperatures (−196 °C) in tanks of liquid nitrogen. Material preserved in this way can be stored indefinitely and used for artificial insemination, in vitro fertilisation, embryo transfer, and cloning. Some facilities also collect and cryopreserve plant material.
Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary is located in Bhagalpur District of Bihar, India. The sanctuary is a 60 kilometers stretch of the Ganges River from Sultanganj to Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur district. notified as Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary in 1991, it is the protected area for the endangered Gangetic dolphins in Asia. Once found in abundance, only a few hundred remain, of which half are found here.
Bhor Saidan Crocodile Breeding Centre, managed by the Haryana Forests Department to captive breed and conserve the freshwater mugger crocodile native to India, is located at Bhor Saidan village on Kurukshetra-Pehowa Road in Kurukshetra district of Haryana in India. It is 13 km from the old Kurukshetra Bus Stand and 22 km from the new Kurukshetra Bus Stand in sector 10.
Hemendra Singh Panwar is an Indian conservationist and civil servant, known for his efforts in the fields of wildlife and conservation. He was the first director of the Wildlife Institute of India and was the director of Project Tiger. The Government of India honoured him, in 2013, with Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award, for his services to the environment and conservation.
The Ch. Devi Lal Rudraksh Vatika Herbal Nature Park, in short Rudraksh Vatika, is a 184 acre forested wildlife area, wetland and herbal park for the conservation of biodiversity of over 400 endangered ayurvedic medicinal herbs in Shivalik foothills of Himalayas. It is located on the western bank of Western Yamuna Canal, 1.3 km east of NH-907, in Chuharpur Kalan village of Yamunanagar district of Haryana state in India.
Sunil Kumar Verma, was an Indian biologist and a principal scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India. Verma was primarily known for his contributions to the development of "universal primer technology", a first generation DNA barcoding method, that can identify any bird, fish, reptile or mammal from a small biological sample, and satisfy legal evidence requirements in a court of law. This technology has revitalised the field of wildlife forensics and is now routinely used across India to provide a species identification service in cases of wildlife crime. This approach of species identification is now known as "DNA barcoding" across the world.
Lalji Singh FNA, FASc was an Indian scientist who worked in the field of DNA fingerprinting technology in India, where he was popularly known as the "Father of Indian DNA fingerprinting". Singh also worked in the areas of molecular basis of sex determination, wildlife conservation forensics and evolution and migration of humans. In 2004, he received the Padma Shri in recognition of his contribution to Indian science and technology.