All posts by : Santosh Bhattarai

The dark sitana, a lizard endemic to a town in Nepal, is critically endangered by the loss and degradation of its habitat due to the BP Highway and unplanned urban development.

The critically endangered dark sitana (Sitana fusca), a rare lizard that hasn’t been reported anywhere else in the world, faces a host of challenges for its survival, most of them triggered by the highway development. “The main threat to its existence is the loss of its habitat, which has been fragmented and degraded by the construction of the BP Highway,” says researcher Santosh Bhattarai, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in herpetology.

The news has been featured in the following link on Mongabay.

We printed 1000 copies of Dark sitana poster for conservation outreach in schools and communities in Dark sitana range sites. During our school and community sessions, we taught conservation importance of Dark sitana and other reptiles of the region. We also distributed a copy of the poster to the session attendees. We also circulated our photographs of our outreach sessions in social media. We received overwhelming responses for poster and session requests within Dark sitana range and beyond Dark sitana range where other species of sitana are found. Due to high demand of poster and session requests in schools and communities, we are printing again 1000 copies of the same poster.

Dark sitana “conservation poster” contest was announced at our social media platform herpsNEPAL. A total 22 contestants designed and submitted the poster. The idea of the photo contest was to make members of herpsNEPAL aware about Dark sitana and get better poster design insights. Among all the contestants, two winners (Ms Shreeya Manandhar and Sanej Prsad Suwal) were selected as the best poster designers. The best poster designers were awarded with Dark sitana conservation T-shirt. Ms Shreeya Manandhar is a postgraduate student of Kathmandu University and Mr. Sanej Prasad Suwal is affiliated to NCSC- an NGO based in Kathmandu.

Every year world wildlife day is celebrated on 03 March to commemorate the conservation efforts. Nepal Conservation and Research Center (NCRC) and Mithila Wildlife Trust (MWT) jointly marked the day in Madhesh province, Nepal with two different activities for Dark sitana (Sitana fusca) conservation aligning the theme of world wildlife day “Partnership for conservation” among women group and school students.

The Dark sitana (Sitana fusca) is a critically endangered lizard endemic to Nepal, so far only known from Madhesh province of Nepal. Therefore, to raise awareness on ecological and conservation importance of Drak sitana, we conducted an awareness session for peri-forest women group of Dudhpani community forest, Dhanusha. We also explored the local names and beliefs to respect the indigenous perceptions towards reptiles. We presented slides and video session whether they are aware of the presence of Dark sitana in their community forest or not. We distributed a copy of printed poster of Dark sitana to the participants of the session.

Session with students

We also marked world wildlife day with students at Mahadev Adharbhoot school to imprint conservation importance of Dark sitana and other wildlife in young minds. We found students were very keen and inquisitive to learn about biodiversity around them. We displayed the video of Dark sitana and other wildlife and presented about their behaviour, ecological significance and how students could be the part of the larger conservation arena.