Living on the Edge: The Pir Panjal Markhor

He walks through light and shade along a cliff edge, pausing to survey the valley from an outcrop. He holds a stately pose here, beard flowing in the wind, coat shining in the winter sun, giving us time to marvel at his distinctive corkscrew horns. Then he looks down directly at us, mere specks in the distance, puny creatures that he has permitted to gaze upon his magnificence. Unimpressed, he turns and walks away, melting into the mountainside.

I am in Limber Wildlife Sanctuary in Kashmir’s Baramulla district this March morning, gazing up at the mountain from where the Mithwani nullah flows. It was right here in Limber, nearly six years ago, from a vantage not far from this one, that I saw my first Pir Panjal markhor — Capra falconeri, the world’s largest wild goat, one of the most elusive large mammals in India. 

Lost... and Found

The markhor was thought to be extinct in India before a comprehensive range-wide survey* revealed the wild goat’s presence near the Line of Control (LoC). Subsequent surveys confirmed two markhor populations in the Kazinag and Pir Panjal mountains, totalling approximately 250 individuals.

I visited Limber in the autumn of 2018 with the Kashmir Markhor Recovery Project team**. A long-term collaboration between the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and the Kashmir Department of Wildlife Protection (DoWP), the project aims to conserve the remnant markhor populations in Kashmir. The focus is on Hirpora Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS) in the Shopian district, Kazinag National Park (comprising Limber WLS, Lachipora WLS and Naganari Conservation Reserve) in the Baramulla district, and the recently notified Tatakutti WLS in the Poonch district.

We arrived at WTI’s field station in Babagail village, which lies within Limber sanctuary, on a late September evening. At dawn, we set off along the Mithwani nullah, climbing an overgrown trail through coniferous forests with deodar (at lower altitudes), fir, spruce and kail pine. As we ascended into the heart of the sanctuary, we were flanked by steep cliffs: vital markhor breeding habitat. After a gasping three-kilometre trek (well, gasping for me anyway), we clambered atop the flat rock that overhangs the waterfall at Chemb, then up to a higher ridge at Kandenalle. From here, project head Dr Riyaz Ahmad showed me my first-ever markhors — two females with distinctive corkscrew horns (much shorter than the males), fawn coats and white underparts, browsing way up high on a sheer cliff face.

The Sanctuary that Wasn’t

Before Limber, we had visited the Hirpora sanctuary in the Pir Panjal mountains. This 341-sq-km wilderness of magnificent meadows and pristine high-altitude lakes had been repeatedly ravaged by what some describe as “development”. First, the Mughal Road, built in the mid-2000s, disrupted wildlife movement and let loose the myriad problems that follow when humans gain easy access to natural areas. Then, there were the powerlines and their towers, which were supposed to have been installed with minimal disturbance using only manual labour (per a Supreme Court edict) but were brute-forced in with dynamite and heavy machinery in 2016.

The over-utilisation of summer pastures by livestock herders, the Bakkarwals and Gujjars, was also causing considerable damage — particularly since the herders had begun selling their traditional grazing rights. This is a practice called tikiyana, where they either sublet pastures outright or charge others a fee to bring livestock, in addition to their own, to graze in the sanctuary. The presence of herders on the higher pastures was especially problematic since Hirpora’s beleaguered markhors had already been pushed to sub-optimal parts of the landscape.

A WTI survey estimated that the markhor population in Hirpora had declined by as much as 50 per cent between 2003-04 and 2013-14, down from 70 individuals to about 35. In the last population estimation conducted by DoWP and WTI in 2022-23, markhor numbers in Hirpora could not be estimated “due to very few sightings”.

Snow-bound after Balakot

I haven’t returned to Hirpora since 2018, but in February 2019, a day after the Balakot airstrikes, I found myself back in Limber. Srinagar airport had just reopened that morning and fighter jets patrolled the skies above the LoC as I reached Babagail. At the army camp below the village, where all visitors must present themselves, I was told explicitly: accessing the inner reaches of the sanctuary was out of the question; I would have to confine myself to the village.

Even without the red alert on the border, the weather would have made markhor watching difficult. Kashmir was experiencing its heaviest snowfall in three decades and I spent most of my time indoors, making occasional sorties till the Gujjar basti at the edge of Babagail. Fortunately, my intended focus this time was less on markhors than their protectors: men like my host, Fayaz Ahmad Dar, a daily wager with the Wildlife Department.

Fayaz had been working for the department for nearly a decade in the hope of securing a permanent job. Not only was that hope unfulfilled, he, like the thousands of temporary workers enlisted to make up for the shortfall in permanent frontline staff in Kashmir, was only paid occasionally for his services. He considered himself fortunate to have received Rs 3,000 as “wages” in January, after a gap of six months. His wife Zubeida had just given birth to their second son and he had been able to meet her medical expenses. "Doosra kaam dhoondta, par kaam kahan hai?” (What other jobs can we find here in the middle of nowhere?) he shrugged. “We survive; we make do however we can.”

My 2019 Limber visit may have been a bust in terms of spotting markhors, but I spent an invaluable five days with the frontline staff, particularly the temporary staff. I also learned an indelible lesson in the neighbouring Lachipora sanctuary, where I stayed for a couple of days with daily wager Abdul Latif, aka Mughal. During the five-minute walk from Mughal’s home to the village store, he spotted a markhor high up on an adjacent mountain. I could just about make out its large corkscrew horns when it turned its head, but my first sighting of a male markhor is now a fading speck in my memory. Since then, I expect to encounter wildlife in unexpected places, and I always have my camera or binoculars with me in the field.

Kazinag National Park is the last remaining stronghold of the markhor in India. The 2022-23 DoWP-WTI estimation recorded about 220 individuals, a stable population that could be expected to show signs of increase. Unlike Hirpora, there are limited entry points for livestock herders, particularly in Limber, which means the anthropogenic pressures arise from fringe villages for the most part.

Through the Kashmir Markhor Recovery Project, WTI and the DoWP have been working to monitor and assess markhor populations within and outside Protected Areas such as Kazinag, Hirpora, and Tatakutti. The project also aims to reduce the impact of resident and transient communities on forests and pastures. Thus, there are anti-grazing patrols to reduce livestock pressure on markhor habitats; community-based volunteers have been trained and equipped as “Markhor Watchers”; access to various government welfare schemes has been facilitated; women’s self-help groups have been supported; homestays and ecotourism ventures have been encouraged to foster sustainable livelihoods.

It is equally important to ensure that the frontline staff in these Protected Areas get their due. In Limber, for instance, there are just three permanent and eight temporary staff for the entire sanctuary. Between them, they man the rest house and the check post, patrol 12 compartments across two beats, protect the trees and pastures and the last remaining markhors, and address human-wildlife conflict with monkeys, leopards and bears, even in nearby territorial divisions. They often lack basic gear like weather-appropriate clothing, first-aid kits, GPS units, cameras and binoculars — and, of course, the daily wagers lack wages. As Muzaffar Hussain Lone, another temporary staffer working in the sanctuary, says, “We are on duty 24 hours at times; we are in the upper areas even at night if required. Is it too much to ask that we are treated fairly?”

It is March 2024, and I am back in Limber, back in the room with green walls on the first floor of Fayaz’s family home. He was last paid in January: just Rs 1,500, after many months. He tells me he had to use Zubeida’s mahr — the dower he gave her when they were married — to build a separate room where they now stay with Faizaan and Haazim, their sons.

A new trekking route was recently opened from near the army camp to the waterfall and on to Roosy Gali, bringing in an influx of visitors, weekend markhor watchers, in the warmer months. But now the sanctuary is quiet under winter’s shroud. I hike up with Fayaz, Muzaffar and Ishtiaq Ahmad War (another daily wager) on a beautiful sunny morning. The waterfall is ice-bound and the area above it inaccessible, but way up high on the flanking cliffs at Mithwani, we spot thirteen females and a majestic male who turns his nose up at us. At our feet, the fresh pugmarks of a subadult leopard tell a story of survival in the snow. As we cross the second-last bridge before Babagail on the way back, a yellow-throated marten provides a farewell sighting.

I will return some other winter to marvel at Kazinag’s markhors. Of their protectors, I hope, by then, I will have a different story to tell.

*The comprehensive range-wide survey mentioned was conducted in 2004 by Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), the Jammu and Kashmir Department of Wildlife Protection (DoWP), and the Indian Army’s Environment and Ecology Cell.

** In 2018, the Kashmir Markhor Recovery Project team comprised Dr Riyaz Ahmad, the (then) project head, (former) field officer Tahir Gazanfar, sociologist Sameer Khazir, and field assistant Mohammad Akbar War (now deceased).