Wild weeds posing threat to Kaziranga

GUWAHATI, May 2 ? Wildlife personnel in Kaziranga National Park (KNP) are engaged in a peculiar battle with wild weeds growing in different corners of the park in addition to their primary responsibility of protecting the faunal resources. A sizeable area of grasslands inside the sprawling national park is now under threat from invading wild weeds particularly flowering mimosa creeper much to the worry of the park authority. The director of the national park, N K Basu, informed The Assam Tribune that about 128 hectares of grassland area in the wildlife protection area had been invaded by weeds causing alarming shrinkage in grazing area for the large number of herbivorous animals including the rhino, deers, baffalos etc of the park. The problem is compounded by the fact that these animals do not consume the weeds that have grown at the expense of the grass. The wildlife staff of the park have been fighting hard to root out the weeds for last couple of years but without much success. In absence of modern equipment techniques to purge the grassland area of the wildlife park of weeds, the park authority has been trying to arrest the spread of weeds through ploughing of land. But the director says that it is difficult to root out weeds permanently to save the grassland which is vital for survival and growth of animal population in the national park. Chemicals cannot be used to root out these weeds for fear of causing deaths to animals. Sources informed that concentration of these invading weeds are more towards the eastern and north eastern direction of the national park compared to other parts. It was suspected that mimosa weed which is most dangerous to the grassland, spread over to park area from neighbouring tea estates. The tea gardens used to grow mimosa in new plantation areas for the purpose of nitrogen secretion. However, after the weed posed serious threat to grassland of national park, the tea estates have now stopped growing mimosa at the request of the Park authority. Still the problem persists.