A mere nine buffaloes, eight males and one female, remain in the sanctuary and the declining numbers had caused the Chhatisgarh government to initiate the recovery project.
An ambitious project to increase the wild buffalo population through cloning had been implemented by the state five years ago. Scientists from the Animal Biotechnology Centre at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) are conducting research on the cloning of the species to save it from extinction and have collected genetic samples from the lone female buffalo and signed an MoU with the Chhatisgarh government.
"Our hopes were high but now we will have to wait for three years," said Ashutosh Mishra, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO). "We are doing everything possible to protect these wild buffaloes from going extinct. However, unless we have more females their numbers won't rise," he added.
"Once again hopes have been dashed. It is high time that the Maharashtra government starts a similar experiment by utilising the buffalo herd in Kolamarka. The responsibility of the state government has now increased immensely," said Kishor Rithe, standing committee of National Board for Wild Life (NBWL), who has called for a more detailed study about alternative methods to conserve the species.
Other options have been considered by the Chhatisgarh Forest Department, such as acquiring a male and female wild buffalo from the Northeast. Mishra has stated that a team of genetic experts and the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) representative, R.P. Mishra will visit Manas National Park in Assam to procure the male and female for the breeding programme. Attempts are also being made to procure the best quality buffalo which is morphologically similar to the wild buffalo. "This buffalo will be mated with a wild male. After three or four births, we will get genetically pure buffaloes," Mishra said.
A three-day international workshop was held at Nagpur in early November and experts have set a goal to obtain at least 150 genetically compatible wild buffaloes in the next five years in Central India.
