Endangered Species and the IUCN Red List: Categories and PYQs

The correct answer is B, Tiger. Project Tiger was launched in 1973, the year after the Wildlife (Protection) Act came into force, and it was the first species recovery project of its kind in India. It began with a small group of reserves, Jim Corbett among them, and works on the principle of a strictly protected core area surrounded by a buffer in which regulated use is allowed. Option A is wrong because Gir is the forest in Gujarat that shelters the Asiatic lion and is a national park, not the name of a national project. Option C is wrong because the rhino programme, aimed at the greater one-horned rhinoceros of Assam and Bengal, came much later than 1973. Option D is wrong because the hangul, the Kashmir stag of Dachigam, has its own state level recovery effort and was never the first national project.

The correct answer is B, Switzerland. The International Union for Conservation of Nature was founded in 1948 and works from Gland, a town in Switzerland near Geneva, where several environmental bodies have their offices. It began the Red List of Threatened Species in 1964 and remains its keeper. Option A is wrong because India is a member state of the union and hosts its country office, but the world headquarters was never here. Option C is wrong because Nairobi in Kenya is the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme, a different body that candidates often confuse with the IUCN. Option D is wrong because no principal organ of the IUCN sits in the United States; Washington is remembered in this topic for the signing of CITES in 1973, not for the union itself.

The correct answer is D, Schedule I. The greater one-horned rhinoceros, the animal of Kaziranga and Manas in Assam, is placed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the schedule that carries the highest protection and the strictest punishment for hunting or trade. The tiger, the Asiatic lion, the snow leopard, the Indian wild ass and the great Indian bustard sit in the same schedule. Options A and C are wrong because the lower schedules were meant for animals that need protection but not of the highest order, and no big mammal under such heavy poaching pressure would be left there. Option B is wrong for the same reason. In the exam, remember the simple rule that the most threatened and most poached animals of India are Schedule I species.

The correct answer is B, Vulnerable. The Red List arranges risk in a ladder, and the three threatened grades in falling order of severity are Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable. A Vulnerable species therefore faces a high risk of extinction in the wild, but a smaller risk than an Endangered one. Option A is wrong because Critically Endangered is the grade above Endangered, meaning an extremely high risk and the last step before a species is lost from the wild. Option C is wrong because Extinct in the Wild describes a species that survives only in captivity or cultivation, which is worse than any threatened grade. Option D is wrong because Extinct is the end of the ladder, with no individual left anywhere. Learn the ladder once and this family of questions becomes free marks.

The correct answer is D, Rann of Kachchh. The Wild Ass Sanctuary lies in the Little Rann of Kachchh in Gujarat and is the last home of the Indian wild ass, locally called the khur, a Schedule I animal that grazes on the raised patches of grass known as bets in the salt desert. Option A is wrong because the cold desert of Ladakh holds the kiang, a different Tibetan wild ass, but the sanctuary named for the wild ass is not there. Option B is wrong because the Sundarbans of West Bengal is mangrove country and is famous for the Royal Bengal tiger and the estuarine crocodile. Option C is wrong because the Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh is snow leopard and ibex country. Pair the khur with Gujarat and the question is settled.

The correct answer is B, 1952. The Asiatic cheetah once hunted across the open grassland and scrub of central and peninsular India, was trained by rulers for coursing blackbuck, and was wiped out by shooting and by the ploughing of its grassland. The government formally declared the species extinct in the country in 1952, making it the only large mammal India has lost in modern times. Option A is wrong because 1947 is the year of independence and has no link with the declaration. Option C is wrong because 1972 is the year of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, a date worth knowing but a different one. Option D is wrong because 1984 belongs to other environmental events and not to the cheetah. Examiners often place 1952 beside 1972 to see whether a candidate can keep the two apart.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Silent Valley National Park lies in the Palakkad district of Kerala, in the Nilgiri hills of the Western Ghats, and protects one of the last stretches of undisturbed tropical evergreen forest in the country. It is best known as a stronghold of the lion-tailed macaque, a threatened primate found only in the Western Ghats, and it was saved from a hydroelectric project by a long public campaign before being declared a national park. Option A is wrong because Tamil Nadu, though it shares the Nilgiri landscape, holds Mudumalai and Mukurthi instead. Option C is wrong because Odisha is the state of Simlipal and the Gahirmatha turtle coast. Option D is wrong because Chhattisgarh has Indravati and Kanger Valley. Tie Silent Valley to Kerala and to the lion-tailed macaque.

The correct answer is C, 1975. CITES was drafted and signed at Washington in 1973, but a treaty begins to bind its members only after enough countries ratify it, and that stage was reached in 1975. It controls cross border trade through three appendices, of which Appendix I forbids commercial trade in the most threatened species such as the tiger and the rhinoceros. Option A is wrong because 1971 is the year of the Ramsar Convention on wetlands, signed in Iran. Option B is wrong in this particular question because 1973 is the year of signing, not of entry into force, and the paper asks for the latter. Option D is wrong because 1992 is the year of the Rio Earth Summit and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Keep the pair 1973 signed and 1975 in force firmly in mind.

The correct answer is D, all three pairs. The Himalayan region is home to wild goats such as the ibex and the tahr and to the snow leopard, which hunts them above the tree line, so pair (a) is right. The tropical evergreen forests of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands yield hardwood timber including mahogany and rosewood, so pair (b) is right. The Gir forest of Gujarat is the only wild home of the Asiatic lion, so pair (c) is right as well. Options A, B and C are therefore wrong because each leaves out a pair that is correctly matched. Matching questions of this kind reward a candidate who has learnt the species with its landscape rather than the species alone, and the safest habit is to check every pair before choosing an option that excludes one.

The correct answer is A, Dachigam National Park. The hangul, also called the Kashmir stag, is the only surviving Asiatic subspecies of the red deer in India and its last viable population lives in Dachigam, a park in the hills above Srinagar whose name means ten villages. It is a Schedule I animal and the state animal of Jammu and Kashmir. Option B is wrong because Hemis in Ladakh is the high altitude park associated with the snow leopard and the bharal. Option C is wrong because Kanha in Madhya Pradesh is tiger country and the home of the hard ground barasingha, a swamp deer that candidates often mix up with the hangul. Option D is wrong because Manas in Assam protects the pygmy hog, the rhinoceros and the tiger. Deer questions turn on this one distinction.

The correct answer is B, the Gangetic river dolphin. This nearly blind freshwater dolphin of the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna systems finds its prey by echolocation and was declared the National Aquatic Animal of India in 2009, a step meant to draw attention to the pollution and damming of its rivers. It is a Schedule I species. Option A is wrong because the olive ridley turtle, famous for its mass nesting at Gahirmatha in Odisha, is protected but carries no national title. Option C is wrong because the dugong or sea cow is a threatened marine mammal of the Gulf of Mannar and the Andaman waters, and is not the national aquatic animal. Option D is wrong because the Ganges shark is a rare river shark with no such status. Remember the trio of tiger, elephant and dolphin for national titles.

The correct answer is D, 1992. Project Elephant was launched in 1992 to protect elephants, their habitat and the corridors along which herds move between forests, and it also deals with human elephant conflict and the welfare of captive elephants. Option A is wrong because 1972 is the year of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, the law under which such projects operate. Option B is wrong because 1973 belongs to Project Tiger, which came first and became the model for later species programmes. Option C is wrong because 1986 is the year of the Environment (Protection) Act, passed after the Bhopal gas tragedy, and has nothing to do with elephants. The elephant was later declared the National Heritage Animal in 2010, a fact often asked together with the year of the project.