At 3,112 m altitude, cameras click Bengal’s 1st endangered musk deer
Times of India | 25 November 2025
Kolkata: In a first, Bengal has recorded the photographic evidence of the endangered musk deer. It has been clicked in Neora Valley National Park during a pan-India assessment of red pandas. It was believed that the species had gone "locally extinct" after its last reported sighting at Singalila in 1955. The study has recently been published in Oryx, an international journal on conservation by Cambridge University Press.
"India hosts four musk deer species — black musk deer, Himalayan musk deer, alpine musk deer and Kashmir musk deer — all restricted to Himalayan region. They are categorized as ‘Endangered' on IUCN Red list as they are threatened due to poaching for their musk glands, which are highly valued in traditional medicine and perfumery. Their presence has been confirmed in Arunachal, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim and Uttarakhand, but their presence in Bengal has been historically ambiguous," said the report by researchers Meghna Limboo and Govindan Veeraswami Gopi of Wildlife Institute of India and Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research.
"The exercise was started in Dec 2023. A camera trap yielded six consecutive images of musk deer on Dec 17, 2024 at an altitude of 3,112 metres. Though morphological traits such as elongated hare-like ears, absence of antlers and visible upper canines are consistent with diagnostic features of the genus Moschus, there was limited visibility of key morphological characteristics needed for species-level ID," it said. Bhaskar JV, CCF (wildlife), N Bengal, said they were yet get the report.