Daily Times

JAMSHORO: Keeping in view a severe drought in the Kohistan region, the Sindh Wildlife Department has started supplying grass and fodder for wild animals at Sindh’s biggest national park, Kherthar National Park or Khirthar National Park.

According to the Sindh Wildlife Department (SWD), the government of Sindh has sent 40,000 kilograms of green grass of millet plant for wild animals of the park. The weeklong activity will continue in the areas of Zero Point, Chamray Wari Teer, Baaran Nai and Game Reservoir at the Kerthar National Park.

Sohail Ahmed Khoso, field officer at the Kherthar National Park, said it was a routine activity, which his department would conduct twice a year during the dry spell. “This is an annual activity. Mobility of animals becomes limited in the dry season,” Khoso told Daily Times. “We want to protect wild animals. We have three species — Sindh Ibex, Urail and Chinkara Gazelle,” he added.

The Kherthar National Park, Pakistan’s second biggest National Park after Hingol National Park, is a protected site for major wildlife preservation in Pakistan and is located near Karachi in the Kherthar Range, which spreads from Karachi to Jamshoro along the Balochistan boarder. It is home to the endangered Sindh Ibex Urial, Black Bucks, wild goat and several other mammals, birds and reptiles.

For the past five years, the Kherthar National Park has been facing a severe drought like the Thar Desert where severe drought has killed more than 2,000 infants, peacocks, livestock and other wild animals.

However, the drought-like conditions at the park were rarely reported in the national media.

Last year, the Sindh government declared the Thar Desert and Kohistan region drought-hit regions and started free distribution of wheat to people of these regions, but the government did not include wild animals in this relief package.