Project Elephant, launched by the Government of India for the protection of elephants and their corridors, was started in which year?

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.