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News: Bombay Natural History Society sterilizes over 2,950 Dogs to Protect Black-Necked Cranes and Wildlife in areas of Hanle Wetland and Tso Kar, Ladakh.
About Hanle Wetland
- It is a thriving high-altitude wetland oasis in the cold desert of Ladakh.
- Location: It is located in Hanle village in Ladakh, near the border with China.
- Hanle Valley falls within the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary.
- River associated with: It is a complex of fast flowing streams, stagnant pools, saline marshes, seasonally flooded marshes, and bogs along the Hanle river.
- These wetlands are frozen from November to April and are fed by snowmelt in summer.
- Vegetation: The marshes, grasslands and steppes support vegetation such as forbs and hardy grasses, including Krascheninnikovia ceratoides, locally known as ‘gyab-shen’.
- Flora: The freshwater pools shelter species such as Hydrilla, Myriophyllum, Potamogeton, and an edible aquatic lichen.
- Fauna: It provides a vital refuge for wildlife, including the endangered Black-necked Crane, elusive Pallas’s cat, and the rare Tibetan gazelle.
- It also offers moist soil and habitats suitable for small burrowing mammals like marmots and pikas.
About Tso Kar
- Location: It is a high altitude wetland situated in the Changthang region of Ladakh.
- It consists of two connected lakes:
- Startsapuk Tso (a freshwater lake of about 438 hectares to the south) and
- Tso Kar (a hypersaline lake of 1800 hectares to the north).
- Named after: It is called Tso Kar, meaning white lake, because of the white salt efflorescence found on the margins due to the evaporation of highly saline water.
- Fauna: Numerous threatened species inhabit this wetland, including the endangered saker falcon and Asiatic wild dog or dhole, and the vulnerable snow leopard.
- Recognition: It was designated a Ramsar site in 2020.
- The Tso Kar Basin is an A1 Category Important Bird Area (IBA) as per Bird Life International and a key staging site in the Central Asian Flyway.
- Important Breeding Ground: The site is one of the most important breeding areas of the Black-necked Crane in India.
- It is also the major breeding area for Great Crested Grebe Bar-headed Geese, Ruddy Shelduck, Brown-headed Gull, Lesser Sand-Plover, and many other species.
