Factors including a significant reduction in population or habitat make any species considered to be threatened or endangered. There are a few such species officially declared extinct and later rediscovered. In this series, the spotted feline in 1952 was declared officially extinct in India. The Javan Rhino, once one of the most common rhinoceros species, is now considered one of the world's most endangered species and is currently extinct in India. Similarly, Jerdon’s courser is a restricted-range endemic found in India’s Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh. The species was considered to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 1986 and the area of rediscovery was subsequently declared as the Sri Lankamaleswara Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Forest Owlet (Heteroglaux blewitti) has been lost for more than a century. After 113 long years, in 1997, the owlet was rediscovered and reappeared on the list of Indian birds. The population of vultures in India has declined drastically over the past decade and they are listed as critically endangered species. The three species of vulture population, viz., White-backed Vulture Gyps bengalensis, Slender-billed Vulture Gyps tenuirostris, and Long-billed Vulture Gyps indicus have declined by 99%. According to the reports, the vulture population in seven tiger reserves and forest areas in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala has registered a remarkable increase from 246 in February 2023 to 308 in December 2023 in a boost to the efforts for protecting and increasing the population of the critically endangered bird. The population count was done in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (78 vultures), Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (70), Bandipur Tiger Reserve (65), BRT Tiger Reserve (14), Nagerhole Tiger Reserve (38), Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (51), and Nellai Forest Division (4).
The census recorded five species- long-billed Vulture with 6 nests, red-headed Vulture with 3 nests, Egyptian Vulture, white-rumped Vulture with 94 nests, and Himalayan Vulture. Likewise, over 70 years after India’s native subspecies, the Asiatic Cheeta became extinct. With the death of the last remaining population of the Asiatic cheetah in India, the species was declared extinct in India; it is the only animal in recorded history to become extinct from India due to unnatural causes. Small numbers of Southeast African Cheetahs have been flown in from Namibia and South Africa to a national park in India.
Kuno National Park (KNP), a wildlife sanctuary in central India, was selected for relocation of the African cheetahs for its abundant prey and grasslands.
Irfan Habib the eminent historian in his economic and political history of the Mughal Empire depicted large areas in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Central India, and Uttar Pradesh as the grounds where the cheetah was hunted or captured. However, the reintroduction was complicated by the fact that the cheetahs survive in similar habitats as the lion.
As part of the reintroduction of cheetahs under the 'Action Plan for Introduction of Cheetah in India,’ the central government has prioritized four former cheetah range states, including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh.
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on January 24 said Namibian cheetah Jwala has given birth to four cubs at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Since March 2023, seven adult cheetahs from Africa and three cubs have died in Kuno National Park.
The total number of cheetahs at the KNP currently stands at 21 (six males, seven females, and eight cubs). Jwala and Aasha are among the cheetahs translocated to India from Namibia under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Project Cheetah, aimed at re-introducing the only large carnivore species that went extinct in India.
The first batch of eight cheetahs was introduced in India in September 2022. The second batch of 12 cheetahs was flown in from South Africa last February.
Shrinking habitat, due to the increasing human population and climate change, is a huge threat and India's grasslands and forests could offer “appropriate” homes for the big cat, said Laurie Marker, of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, an advocacy and research group assisting in bringing the cats to India.
After KNP in Madhya Pradesh, cheetahs brought from Africa will start roaming Gujarat's Banni grassland shortly as the central government has approved a proposal to set up a cheetah conservation breeding centre in the Kutch district. State Forest Minister Mulubhai Bera in a statement said that to support the restoration of the cheetah population in the country, the state government had prepared a proposal under the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management Authority (National CAMPA) for using Banni Grassland as one of the centres.
The Gujarat government said that the central government has approved setting up a cheetah breeding and conservation centre in Banni Grassland, a reserved forest spread over 2,618 sq km in the Kutch district. The government said a proposal had been sent to the centre which has been accepted. Banni Grassland, considered one of the finest, spans 2,618 sq. km and is located along the northern border of Kutch. It is also home to 40,000 Maldharis, a pastoral community known for rearing high-yielding buffaloes and cows.
Some other endangered species are Nilgiri Tahr goat species, the Great Indian Bustard, Asiatic Lion, Bengal Tiger, Lion Tailored Macaque, Kashmir Stag, etc. Researchers from the Botanical Survey of India, Dehradun, and Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla have recently rediscovered a rare, threatened, and presumed extinct species Brachystelma attenuatum after a gap of 188 years. The species has been rediscovered in the Hamirpur and Mandi districts of Himachal Pradesh. The species was first discovered and described in 1835 by the botanists John Forbes Royle and Robert Wight from the Doongi village (now in Hamirpur district) of Himachal Pradesh.
Since its first collection, the species have not been observed and have therefore been presumed extinct by scientists. In the year 2020, while doing field surveys in the Western Himalayas, some interesting tuberous plants were observed and brought to the Botanical Survey of India, Dehradun and there it was identified as ‘Brachystelma parviflorum’, a species thought to be extinct since 186 years.
The Pygmy hog (Porcula 3alvinia) is the world’s smallest wild pig, with adults weighing only 8 kg. This species constructs a nest throughout the year. The grasslands where the pygmy hog resides are crucial for the survival of other endangered species such as Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), swamp deer (Cervus duvauceli), wild buffalo (Bubalus arnee), hispid hare (Caprolagus hispidus), Bengal fl orican (Eupodotis bengalensis) and swamp francolin (Francolinus gularis). In 1996, a captive-breeding programme of the species was initiated in Assam, and some hogs were reintroduced in the Sonai Rupai area also in 2009.
The Gliding Frog (Rhacophorus pseudomalabaricus) is endemic to the Western Ghats. This species is confined to the rainforests of the Western Ghats and occurs at elevations of greater than 1000 m. This species has been recently described in the year 2000. Scientists and lepidopterists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in collaboration with the Indian Foundation for Butterflies Trust have discovered in the forests of Kodagu district, the biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats a butterfly species “Conjoined Silverline” (Cigaritis Conjucta).
The team surveyed Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary where more than 30 butterflies of a species in the Honey Valley area were found. This new species is tiny and has less than an inch in wingspan. A close study and observation reveal distinctive fused bands on the underside of the wings that warranted the name Conjoined Silverline and made the species different from their close relatives and other Silverline species. Similarly, as per naturalists at the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in Mumbai Geckoella Jeyporensis or Jeyporeground gecko, an enigmatic lizard from the Eastern Ghats that was considered extinct, has been rediscovered after 135 years.
Indian biologist Sathyabhama Das Biju and a team of scientists, in the jungles of north- eastern India rediscovered an extraordinary tree frog thought to have died out more than a century ago has been rediscovered in India.