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A 90-ft long ecobridge has been made by the Uttarakhand Forest Department on Kaladhungi-Nainital highway in Ramnagar forest division of Nainital district to ensure the safety and protection of reptiles while crossing busy jungle roads.
This bamboo-jute structure is 5-ft wide and 40-ft high and can bear the weight of three adult humans. The highway has been built by local contractors over a period of about 10 days.
The highway, being the main route to Nainital, remains busy especially in the tourist season. Under high speed vehicles many monitor lizards, snakes, rodent squirrels, monkeys and other reptiles and animals get crushed. The brigde is an initiative to help these animals cross busy jungle roads.
The brigde, which will be put in sight of four camera traps, will be studied as a model by the Forest Department, Ramnagar Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Chandra Sekhar Joshi said.
“We are experimenting. We want to create suitable conditions for reptiles and other such animals so that they can use it. We want to create a micro-environment for them on the bridge,” DFO Joshi said.
Forest staff would patrol the area to ensure tourists do not try to use the bridge for selfies, he added.
The Indian Express, Monday, November 30, 2020
While returning from Nainital in November 2010, I came across these road kills. The langur was first killed by a vehicle. Some time in the night, while a red fox mother with her grown up pup (a female) were presumably scavenging on the kill, they met with the same fate as the langur. I took this photograph early in the morning on the Nainital-Kaladhungi road. (– Bivash Pandav)
Conservation India, Thursday, August 2, 2012