Wildlife of Jammu and Kashmir: Animals and Birds

The animals in Jammu and Kashmir include the hangul (Kashmir stag), Kashmir musk deer, Himalayan serow, Asiatic black bear, brown bear and leopard. Ladakh, next door, adds snow leopards, Tibetan wild ass and black-necked cranes. Since 2019 these are two separate union territories, so each count belongs to one of them.

The Kashmir animals live mainly in the montane forests described in our guide to the types of forests in India. The plants are covered on our page about the flora of Jammu and Kashmir.

Which animals are found in Jammu and Kashmir? (summary table)

The table separates the two union territories; “J&K” means the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

Are Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh the same for wildlife?

No. A Ministry of Home Affairs release on PIB, dated 2 November 2019, explains the change. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, the former state was reorganised on 31 October 2019. It became the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the union territory of Ladakh. Ladakh consists of the Kargil and Leh districts. The rest of the former state forms Jammu and Kashmir.

This matters for wildlife, because the two regions are very different places:

• Jammu and Kashmir has the Kashmir Valley, forested Himalayan slopes and alpine meadows. Its animals are mostly forest animals such as deer, bears and leopards.
• Ladakh lies behind the Great Himalaya. It is a high, dry, cold desert with few trees. Its animals are adapted to open plains, rocky slopes and salty lakes.

Older books often list the snow leopard and black-necked crane under Jammu and Kashmir. Today, place them mainly under Ladakh.

What is the hangul, the Kashmir stag?

The hangul (Cervus hanglu hanglu) is also called the Kashmir red deer or Kashmir stag. Most facts below come from a 2021 report in the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) digital repository. SKUAST-Kashmir prepared it together with WII and the Jammu and Kashmir Department of Wildlife Protection.

Status and protection

• The report calls the hangul the state animal of Jammu and Kashmir. It says the deer is endemic to the Kashmir Himalayas. Endemic means it is found naturally nowhere else.
• It is listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, which gives the highest level of legal protection.
• According to the report, the IUCN placed the hangul in its “critically endangered” category in 2017.
• NCERT’s Class 11 geography book names Project Hangul among the special species projects launched by the Government of India.

Range and numbers

The hangul once lived widely across the mountains of Kashmir. According to the 2021 report, its numbers fell from about 5,000 before 1947. Its only viable population is now confined to the 141 km² Dachigam National Park, with small isolated groups in nearby old range areas. The latest census quoted in the 2021 report, from 2020, put the population at 240-280 hangul. Elsewhere the same report gives a lower figure of 200 or fewer.

Why is the hangul in trouble?

The report lists several causes:

1. Heavy livestock grazing in its summer meadows, and disturbance in its winter habitat.
2. Poaching and the loss of forest corridors between habitats.
3. Low breeding, more females than males, and poor survival of young animals.
4. Predation on calves by leopards, Asiatic black bears, dogs, jackals and foxes.

Researchers fitted satellite collars to five hangul under this project, the first time this had been done. One collared female left Dachigam and set up a new summer range in the Wangath-Naranag Conservation Reserve, an old part of the deer’s range. The report recommends a conservation breeding and reintroduction programme, starting with the Overa Wildlife Sanctuary.

Which protected areas shelter Kashmir’s animals?

A national park is an area protected strictly for wildlife, where people’s activities are tightly limited. A wildlife sanctuary gives protection too, but allows some regulated use. Our comparison of national parks, sanctuaries and biosphere reserves explains the difference.

Dachigam National Park lies close to Srinagar. The WII report gives its area as 141 km² and its height as 1,700 m to 4,700 m above sea level. Besides the hangul, it shelters the Kashmir musk deer (which the report calls endangered), Himalayan serow, Asiatic black bear and brown bear.

Dachigam is the core of a wider Greater Dachigam landscape. The report lists the reserves around it:

• Wangath-Naranag Conservation Reserve, to the north-east
• Overa-Aru Wildlife Sanctuary, to the east
• Tral Wildlife Sanctuary and Shikargah Conservation Reserve, to the south-east

These linked forests act as corridors, routes that let animals move between patches of habitat. Work has begun on a hangul conservation breeding centre at Shikargah, near Tral (WII report, 2021). In the west of the valley, the Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary is another protected forest with its own guide.

What other animals live in the Kashmir forests?

The forests of Jammu and Kashmir change with height. Lower hills carry pine and broadleaved trees, middle slopes carry conifers, and alpine meadows lie above the tree line. Our article on coniferous forests in India describes the deodar, blue pine and fir belts that cover much of this land.

Animals spread themselves along this ladder of habitats:

• Deer and goat-antelopes. The hangul and Kashmir musk deer graze and browse in the forests. The serow keeps to steep, rocky slopes.
• Bears. The WII report names both the Asiatic black bear and the brown bear among Dachigam’s mammals.
• Predators. The common leopard is the big cat of these forests. Jackals and red foxes are smaller predators. The WII report found hangul in the diet of both.
• Snow leopard. It is mainly a Ladakh animal, but India’s 2024 snow leopard report estimated 9 in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

NCERT notes that tribes such as the Gujjars and Bakarwals use the high pastures for transhumance. This means moving flocks between valleys and mountain meadows with the seasons, going up in summer. Wild grazers and domestic flocks therefore share the same meadows.

Which animals live in Ladakh’s cold desert?

Ladakh has thin air, bitter winters and little rain. Few trees grow, so its animals live on open plains, rocky slopes and around high lakes. A 2020 doctoral thesis from WII on the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary lists the mammals of the Changthang area. They include:

• Tibetan wild ass (kiang), which grazes the open plains
• Tibetan argali, blue sheep and Ladakh urial, three kinds of wild sheep
• Tibetan gazelle, a small antelope
• Himalayan marmot, a burrowing rodent
• Snow leopard, Tibetan wolf, lynx, Pallas’s cat, red fox and wild dog, the predators

Snow leopard numbers

The Environment Ministry released India’s first Snow Leopard Population Assessment (SPAI) on 30 January 2024, PIB reported. WII was the national coordinator, and the survey ran from 2019 to 2023. It estimated 718 snow leopards in India. Ladakh had 477, far more than any other state or union territory. Uttarakhand had 124 and Jammu and Kashmir only 9. Our planned page on the snow leopard covers the cat in detail.

Wildlife and herders

People in Changthang raise yak, sheep, pashmina goats and ponies. The thesis notes some conflicts. Wolves and snow leopards kill livestock, and kiang compete with livestock for scarce grass. Free-ranging dogs have also become a threat to both wildlife and livestock.

Which birds are found in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh?

NCERT’s Class 11 geography book lists “the lakes and rivers of the montane region of Kashmir and Ladakh” among India’s wetland regions. A wetland is land covered by shallow water for all or part of the year, such as a marsh or a lake shore. Many waterbirds depend on them.

Black-necked crane (Ladakh)

The black-necked crane is Ladakh’s best-known bird. PIB reported on 5 February 2024 that a WII survey in 2016-2017 counted around 66-69 cranes in the Ladakh region. The Tso Kar Wetland Complex, an important foraging and breeding ground for the crane, became a Ramsar site in December 2020. The crane is listed in Schedule I, and Changthang Sanctuary in Ladakh protects part of its habitat. Our article on migratory birds explains its journey and its second home in Arunachal Pradesh.

Other breeding waterbirds (Ladakh)

The Changthang thesis names other birds that breed on these high lakes. They include the bar-headed goose, brown-headed gull, great crested grebe, ruddy shelduck and lesser sand plover.

Birds of the Kashmir Valley

The lakes and marshes of the Kashmir Valley receive ducks and other waterbirds in winter. The valley’s forests hold resident birds as well. We have not found a current official count for these birds, so this page gives no numbers. The Ramsar sites in India guide lists the protected wetlands.

Why is wildlife in Jammu and Kashmir important?

• Unique species. The hangul exists only in the Kashmir Himalayas. If it disappears here, it is gone for good.
• Healthy watersheds. Dachigam protects part of the catchment of Dal Lake and the old Harwan reservoir, which supplied Srinagar with water.
• Food webs. Leopards, wolves and snow leopards hunt deer and wild sheep, linking predators and grazers in one web of life.

The Himalaya is also one of the biodiversity hotspots that reach into India. Our page on biodiversity hotspots in India explains how the Environment Ministry and other sources define its Indian part.