Attention! Animal crossing ahead

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 6

On an ill-fated November morning last year, a sambar’s stray excursion to the city resulted in its death after being hit by a vehicle near the Sector 3/4/9/10 roundabout. The morning walkers, joggers and cyclists had contacted he UT Forest and Wildlife Department, following which the injured sambar was rushed to a centre of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), but it had wrestled a losing battle with life for way too long after the unfortunate accident.

Learning a lesson from the incident, the Forest and Wildlife Department has now put up animal-crossing signboards along the road from the Governor’s House to Sukhna Lake, covering the lanes leading to the Secretariat and Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Talking about the development, Dabendra Dalai, Chief Conservator of Forests, said, “It is a precautionary step taken by the UT Forest and Wildlife Department. There are 250-300 sambars in the area and their number is increasing. Keeping that in mind, we have put up the sign boards to safeguard our local wildlife.”

It’s not just roads of Chandigarh, but also at the ones near the railway station and in Halo Majra that bear such signboards. “We don’t have the exact data, but there have been some incidents of sambars or deers being killed near the railway station. It’s imperative to spread a word of caution through visual aid,” he added.

For now, some 30 such sign boards have been put up across the tricity and the department has left it to the traffic police to regulate the speed limit.

Not just deer and sambar, pictures of wild boar, snakes and rabbits have been put up along the roads. DSP Pawan Kumar of the UT Traffic Police said, “We may soon look into regulating the speed limit but the city lane around the lake has a minimum speed limit of 45 km/hr and there are traffic lights, too.”