Wild life week was celebrated at Guru Angad Dev Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana by organizing a lecture on “Our endangered wildlife”. Dr Kirti Dua, Incharge Wild life centre and Professor Veterinary Medicine explained that India is a rich mega-diverse country and despite the fact it has only 2.4% of the land mass, it holds more than 7% of the wild life of the planet. Due to intense land pressure due to population explosion and increased exploitation of the natural resources, the natural habitat of the wild animal is shrinking rapidly. So destruction of habitat, poaching and human wildlife conflict are the major reasons for the rapid decline in the wild life. In the last 150 years, we have lost nearly lost 93% of our tiger population and now are left just over 2000 tigers in the country. At the moment there is around 1000 species of flora and fauna in the country are threatened and this figure has increased nearly 50% in the last decade. India is ranked as fourth largest number of threatened species in the world, 31 of them endemic to the region. Now we are left only with two options- Save the wild life to cherish or leave it to perish. Dr Dua used this platform to create awareness in the society for wildlife conservation so that our generations to come also cherish the beauty of the nature.
