CHITRAL: The stray dogs of Chitral city have threatened the life of Kashmir markhors in the adjoining Chitral Gol National Park.

The dogs enter the park area from the city and chase markhors forcing them to flee to the villages bordering the park. Such incidents occurred twice during the last week when wild goats were spotted in the vicinity of Chitral Airport and Chew Bridge.

Divisional forest officer of Chitral Gol Wildlife Division Irshad Ahmad told Dawn that the stray dogs could be seen in the buffer zone of the park in large numbers.

DFO says campaign to kill dogs soon

He said stray dogs easily entered the park as it was not possible for watchers to monitor their movement on the park’s borders.

“Due to the strict conservation process, the population of markhor is on constant rise in the park due to which a large number of them tend to graze in the park areas bordering the buffer zone close to the city,” he said.

The DFO said the department of health and tehsil municipal administration was approached time and again to kill stray dogs in the buffer zone and core area of the park, but to no avail.

“To kill dogs, the ordinary method of poisoning cannot be adopted inside the park as it threatens the biodiversity of the park including markhors for which special operation is required,” he said.

When contacted, district health officer Dr Iftikhar said soon after taking charge of his office last month, he had taken notice of the presence of stray dogs in the city and was planning to begin a campaign to kill them inside the park area and buffer zone.

POLL: The PTI and MMA will have a one-on-one contest for the general seat of district council from Oveer of upper Chitral on Dec 23. The seat had fallen vacant in July last when Abdul Latif of the PTI resigned from it to contest the general election for the National Assembly.

Javed Iqbal of the PTI and Habibuddin of the MMA are the two candidates for the election. Azizur Rahman Janbaz said though the MMA and PTI faced a close contest, the former was in a better position to win election, especially after being supported by the PPP and PML-N. He said the MMA had secured most votes from the area in the July 25 general elections though the PTI nominee, Abdul Latif, belonged to it.

Meanwhile, the returning officer notified the unopposed election ofMohammad Idress as general councillor of the Zargarandeh neighborhood council, a seat, which had fallen vacant after Murad Khan had resigned from it due to ‘personal grounds’ six months ago.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2018