Tharparker (Sindh) Pakistan:: At least two more peacocks have died due to a contagious disease as the death toll has reached to 48 in last nine days in Tharparkar. The Dispatch Nes Desk (DND) reported.
Wildlife Department sources told that one more peacock died of disease, locally known as ‘Ranikhet’ at village Sajai and another one at Abri of Tehsil Deplo here. The Dispatch News Desk (DND) reporterd.
Local people blamed Wildlife Department for its inaction despite the epidemic viral disease ‘Ranikhet’ taking heavy toll of the unprotected peacocks. Dozens of other peacocks are also suffering the same disease and it was feared that toll might rise further, if no immediate steps taken to overcome the problem. Last year, Newcastle disease virus (NDV) killed more than 300 peacocks in different parts of Tharparkar. According to a rough estimate, there are more than 40,000 wild peacocks in Tharparkar but their number is declining because of poaching and lack of effective conservation.
Tharparkar is the only fertile desert in the world. The region derives its names from Thar and Parkar. The name Thar is from Thul, the general term for sand region or sand ridges and Parkar literary means “to cross over”. The region was earlier known as Thar and Parkar, later they became one word. The Thar Region forms part of the bigger desert of the same name that sprawl over a vast area of Pakistan and India from Cholistan to Nagarparkar in Pakistan and from the south of the Haryana down to Rajistan in India.
The area is mostly deserted and consists of barren tract of the sand dunes covered with thorny bushes. The ridges are irregular and roughly paralleled that thy often closed shattered valleys which they raise to a height to some 46 meters. When there is rain these valleys are moist enough admit cultivation and when not cultivated they yield luxuriant crops of rank grass. But the extra ordinary salinity of the subsoil land consequent shortage of portable water renders many tracks quite picturesque salt lakes which rarely a day up.
The only hills are in Nagarparkar, on the Northern edge of the Runn of Kutchh belongs to quite a different geological series. It consist Granite rocks. Probably an outlying mass of the crystalline rocks of the Arravelli range. The arravelli series belongs to Archean system which constitutes the oldest rocks of the earth crust. This is a small area quite different from the desert. The tack is flat a level expect close to Nagarparkar itself. The principle range Karoonjhar is 19 km in length and attains a height of 305 m. smaller hills rise in the east, which is covered with sars jungle and pasturage and gives rise to two springs named Anchlesar and Sardhro as well as temporary streams called Bhatyani and Gordhro after the rain.
