The blackbuck population at Chand Khamariya in Prayagraj has risen from 508 in 2022 to 604 today. It is a real result, from a properly conducted census, and the forest department deserves the credit it is getting. It also published a demographic breakdown that contains a figure nobody has quoted, including the officials who said they measured it.
What the census found
The count was carried out between August and September by the forest department in collaboration with experts from the Acharya Narendra Dev University of Agriculture and Technology, Ayodhya.
| 2022 count | 508 |
| 2026 count | 604 |
| Change | +96 animals |
Divisional Forest Officer (Prayagraj) Arvind Kumar attributed the growth to habitat expansion and measures aimed at reducing human interference inside the protected area, and said the result showed that state initiatives on wildlife protection and human-wildlife conflict were “delivering results on the ground.”
The protected area is described as 146 hectares, spanning four villages including Chand Khamariya and Mahuli Kala. When the reserve was first approved by the state cabinet in 2017, as India’s first blackbuck conservation reserve, the area given was a little over 126 hectares. The increase is consistent with the habitat expansion the DFO cites.
How it was counted
This deserves setting out, because wildlife counts in India are often reported without any method at all.
The protected area was divided into several sectors, according to Yashmita Naveen, assistant professor in the university’s department of agroforestry.
The exercise used four approaches:
- Preliminary surveys
- Transect surveys
- Pilot surveys
- Waterhole counts
A sectorised count combining transects with waterhole observation, run jointly with an agricultural university, is a reasonable methodology. It is also more method than wildlife counts are often reported with.
The number nobody published
Officials stated that “key indicators such as the sex ratio and fawn population were also assessed.” The sex ratio itself was not given.
It can be calculated directly from the breakdown they did publish:
| Category | Number |
|---|---|
| Adult females | 344 |
| Adult males | 92 |
| Sub-adult females | 72 |
| Sub-adult males | 45 |
| Fawns | 51 |
| Total | 604 |
The figures reconcile exactly to 604, which is a good sign: the internal data is consistent.
Adult sex ratio: 3.7 females for every adult male.
Including sub-adults: 3.0 females per male.
What this does and does not mean. Blackbuck is a lekking species: adult males hold and defend display territories, which makes them more conspicuous, more mobile and more exposed than females. Adult sex ratios in blackbuck populations do skew female for that reason, and a skew is not automatically a warning sign.
But it is the number that determines breeding structure, and it is the one indicator officials said they measured without putting a figure on it. The question worth asking is not whether 3.7:1 is alarming. It is what the ratio was in 2022, because the direction of travel is what matters, and that comparison has not been published.
A note on the fawn figure. Fifty-one fawns against 344 adult females looks low at first glance. It is not, once the census timing is accounted for: the count ran in August and September, so animals born earlier in the year would have been recorded as sub-adults, of which there are 117. The young cohort is therefore 168 animals, not 51.
Where the animals actually are
This is the detail that makes sense of the whole count.
The blackbucks do not stay inside the sanctuary. The forest department says plainly that they “frequently move beyond the designated sanctuary limits into neighbouring villages.”
The village-wise distribution bears that out:
| Location | Blackbuck |
|---|---|
| Itwa Kala | 122 |
| Mahuli Kala | 121 |
| Kihuni Kala | 114 |
| Purwa | 90 |
| Chand Khamariya | 47 |
| Baijala Pahadi | 35 |
| Majra Pahadi | 34 |
| Total of locations named | 563 |
Two things follow.
The count spans at least seven locations, while the protected area covers four villages. This is a landscape population, not a fenced one, which is exactly what you would expect for an antelope in 146 hectares, and it is to the department’s credit that they said so rather than implying all 604 sit inside the boundary.
The locations named account for 563 of the 604. The remaining 41 are presumably spread across smaller sites not listed, since the figures were given as the highest counts rather than an exhaustive list. Anyone citing the village figures should use 563 as the total of those named.
The growth, in proportion
Four years, 508 to 604. That is 18.9% in total, or roughly 4.4% a year.
That is steady, healthy growth for a wild ungulate population. It is not a boom, and describing it as one sets up a disappointment at the next count. A population growing at this rate roughly doubles in sixteen years, assuming the habitat holds, and the habitat is the part of this story that is least settled.
The problem underneath the good news
At the bottom of the official account is the most consequential fact in it.
The protected area contains gram sabha land leased out to individuals for various purposes, which produces regular human activity inside the habitat.
Those leases are scattered. Parcels sit in different places across the area, which means the disturbance is not confined to one corner; it runs through the whole of it. That is a direct explanation for why a 146-hectare protected area supports animals that spend much of their time in seven surrounding villages.
The administration’s response is unusually concrete, and worth recording:
- Scattered leased parcels are being consolidated at a single location
- Leased land within the protected area is being allotted in clusters, on the directions of the divisional commissioner
- The revenue department is overseeing the process
Alongside this, the forest department has taken up habitat improvement: cultivating grasses preferred by blackbuck, and building permanent and earthen water troughs to secure drinking water.
Consolidating leases is the single most important thing happening at this site, and it has been reported in one sentence.
One thing to confirm
The area is being referred to as the Chand Khamariya Blackbuck Sanctuary.
When it was declared in 2017, it was notified as a conservation reserve under Section 36A of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, a distinct legal category from a sanctuary, with a different protection standard and a different management structure.
It may since have been re-notified. The terms are also used loosely in everyday reporting. But they are not interchangeable in law, and the current legal status is worth confirming with the Prayagraj forest office.
What blackbuck status actually is
For readers who will see “endangered” attached to this story somewhere:
| IUCN Red List | Least Concern |
| CITES | Appendix III |
| Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 | Schedule I: hunting prohibited |
| State animal of | Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh |
Least Concern globally and Schedule I in India is not a contradiction. The IUCN assesses the species worldwide; Schedule I is the level of legal protection India has chosen to give it. The species is not endangered. Its grassland habitat is the thing under pressure, and populations are now largely confined to small, scattered herds in protected areas.
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