Sambar Deer UPSC

Description

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Context

The presence of a leucistic sambar has been documented in the Sangama range of Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary during studies carried out on leopards by conservation scientist Sanjay Gubbi and his team.

About Sambar

The sambar is a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent, South China and Southeast Asia.
It has been listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List since 2008.
Populations have declined substantially due to severe hunting, local insurgency, and industrial exploitation of habitat.
The sambar is distributed in much of South Asia as far north as the south-facing slopes of the Himalayas in Nepal, Bhutan and India, in mainland Southeast Asia including Burma, Thailand, Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia (Sumatra and Borneo), Taiwan, and South China, including Hainan.
In the Himalayan foothills, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and eastern Taiwan, it ranges up to 3,500 m (11,500 ft).
It inhabits tropical dry forests, tropical seasonal forests, subtropical mixed forests with stands of conifers and montane grasslands, broadleaved deciduous and broadleaved evergreen trees, to tropical rainforests, and seldom moves far from water sources.
The sambar prefers the dense cover of deciduous shrubs and grasses.
Sambar are nocturnal or crepuscular. The males live alone for much of the year, and the females live in small herds of up to 16 individuals.