Environment News India

New Blind eel species discovered in Mumbai well

A new species of swamp eel belonging to the genus Rakthamicthys that is endemic to India was discovered in a well in Mumbai. It was named Rakthamichthys mumba, a hat tip to the city it was found in.

Unlike other species of its genus, the mumba lacks eyes, fins and scales, has jaws equal in forward extent, different gill aperture, crescentic-shaped cephalic, said Anil Mohapatra, a scientist of ZSI, Gopalpur.
Extensive morphological and genetic analysis of the teleost fish was conducted at the Estuarine Biology Regional Center of Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Gopalpur, Odisha.

Mohapatra is one of the co-authors of ‘Rakthamichthys mumba, a new species of Hypogean eel (Teleostei: Synbranchidae) from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India’ published September 2021 in Aqua International Journal of Ichthyology.
The new species was found by Tejas Thackeray of Wildlife Foundation, Mumbai in a 40-feet deep well located on the premises of a blind school at Jogeshwari West, Mumbai City in 2019. He had collected five specimens from the well for the study after completely pumping out the water and killing them by overdose of clove oil, according to the scientists. The present known habitat of the species is only the Mumbai well.

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Boundary wall at SGNP, rehab of padaas, likely remedy to Mumbai’s human-leopard conflict: Wildlife expert

On Wednesday, a 55-year-old woman living in the Aarey dairy colony near Goregaon, Mumbai was attacked by a leopard in the night. Kishor Rithe, Wildlife conservationist and member of Maharashtra state Wildlife Board speaking of the forest encroachment said, “Mumbai city has encroached upon the surrounding forest area and hence there has been Human-leopard conflict in the fringe areas.”

Kishor Rithe, who started the Satpuda Foundation that works at both the grassroots level and policy level to promote its aim to protect wildlife and forests, further added, “We need to stop further fragmentation of forest by constructing a boundary wall to Sanjay Gandhi National Park (as per the HC order), adding few forest patches like Aarey to SGNP and rehabilitating few padaas (meaning cluster of houses) from the heart of SGNP. These steps collectively will help to curb the HL problem in Mumbai.”

👉IBT

Habitat change may wipe out a newly discovered Adi cascade frog species in Arunachal Pradesh

Making of check dams on streams and removal of boulders may wipe out the local population of Adi cascade frogs (Amolops adicola), a recently discovered species in Arunachal Pradesh, scientists claimed.

The nomenclature ‘cascade frogs’ draws on their preference for small waterfalls. Cascade frogs, in general, depend on the flow of water. Both adults and tadpoles of Adi cascade frogs, the species in question, are particularly adapted to fast flowing sections of stream. As such, modification of stream channels may endanger them.

“One of the major threats to these animals is rapid change to their habitat; such as the construction of small dams on streams, altering stream-flow for agriculture and removal of boulders,” said Naitik G Patel from the Department of Endangered Species Management at Wildlife Institute of India (WII).

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Coming soon, a project to secure India’s elephant corridors

As instances of human-elephant conflict rise, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has embarked on a massive project to identify and secure elephant corridors in the country.

According to Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, the Ministry has “recently initiated the verification exercise of elephant corridors and is also working on mapping land use and land cover of elephant reserves in the country using GIS technology which will also aid conservation”.

Experts said elephant corridors have been changing over the years. Dr Tiwari, who is on a committee that was set up by the Ministry earlier this year to look into the issue of elephant corridors, said fragmentation could take place either due to linear infrastructure such as roads and railways, or a change of land use, including the development of plantations or agricultural patches.

👉Indian Express

PM Modi launches campaign to make India garbage free

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U 2.0) Mission October 1, 2021, to make all cities in India ‘garbage free’. Along with this, Modi will also flag of the second phase of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT 2.0).

The SBM-U 2.0, with an outlay of Rs. 1.41 lakh crore, aims to make Indian cities ‘garbage free’ and all urban local bodies (ULBs) open defecation free.
“The Mission will focus on source segregation of solid waste, utilising the principles of 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), scientific processing of all types of municipal solid waste (MSW) and remediation of legacy dumpsites for effective solid waste management,” a press statement from the Press Information Bureau, said.

There has been an explosion in the generation of MSW in Indian cities due to a burgeoning population and even faster urbanisation. This has severely damaged the environment and public health and strained the capacity of ULBs to collect, transport, treat and scientifically dispose of solid wastes.

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