Erection of sign boards to alert drivers on Tirumala ghat road stressed

Tirupati: Despite several instances of speeding vehicles knocking down wild animals on Tirumala ghat roads, the Forest department and the TTD management failed to take precautionary measures to save the animals from falling under speeding vehicles.

The serpentine ghat roads pass through the dense Tirumala forests up to a distance of about 40 kms (both up and down), crisscrossing the natural habitation of scores of wild animals.

But there are no sign boards indicating the presence of wild animals and cautioning the drivers to drive carefully. The ghat road area is the natural habitat for a wide range of wild animals in which leopards, varieties of deer like spotted deer, sambar, four horn antelope, wild boars, sloth beers, wild dogs, peacock, common langur locally know as gandrangi kothi and, giant squirrels.

Often, especially during nights, they move from place to place in search of food and in the process fall under speeding vehicles and lose their lives. Their habitation area has been shrinking due to construction of buildings on the slopes of Tirumala forest, especially in Alipiri area.

On an average, daily about 8,000-10,000 vehicles pass on the ghat road. A few months ago, a leopard was fatally knocked down on the ghat road, 5 km from Alipiri, a sloth bear and sambar were also crushed to death last year.

People feeding animals like common langur and giant squirrel with all sorts of food items risking the health of the animals is another problem,’’ said SV University Zoology Professor Rajasekhar while stressing on sign board cautioning the drivers and also pilgrims. Chief Conservator of Forest S Saravanan said that the absence of alert sign boards on the ghat road did not come to his notice as he joined the office only a month ago.