27-Mar-2019: The hump-backed mahseer is now 'critically endangered'

The hump-backed mahseer—a large freshwater fish also called the tiger of the water and found only in the Cauvery river basin (including Kerala’s Pambar, Kabini and Bhavani rivers)—is now “Critically Endangered”: more threatened than the tiger is, as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. The fish is one of the 229 species added to the Red List last November; this update also reveals that the threat status of 12 other Indian species, including great hornbills, has increased.

The inclusion of the mahseer in the Red List was possible only once the fish got its scientific name last June—Tor remadevi. 16 species of mahseer are recognised in India. Now, securing the future of the hump-backed mahseer would depend on the strong willingness and cooperation of a range of stakeholders in three states—Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka—in the Cauvery, one of India’s most contested rivers.

Five other species have also made it to threatened categories: two wild orchids, the Arabian scad (a marine fish) and two wild coffee species found only in a few localities in the Western Ghats.

While 31 species that were already in the Red List have been down-listed (since threats are not as significant as earlier thought or due to conservation efforts), the threat status of 12 species has increased. The great hornbill (found in India and southeast Asia) was earlier categorised as “Near Threatened”. It is now “Vulnerable” due to high hunting pressure coupled with habitat loss and deforestation, while the wreathed hornbill has moved from “Least Concern” to “Vulnerable”.

Conservation managers use information from the Red List to understand threats to specific species and plan effective conservation strategies to improve the conservation status of individual or groups of species.

Shoal (an international organisation working to conserve freshwater species) initiated ‘Project Mahseer’ last month along with other stakeholders to enable conservation action for the hump-backed mahseer. The Red List is indeed being used in many developing countries including India as a standard to understand the conservation status of species. There is an increase in conservation action, funding and research when a species is included in the List. But up listing or down listing species is a continuous process.