SRINAGAR: Occupied Kashmir’s endangered red deer faces extinction without a captive breeding programme that will start this summer in the scenic Himalayan region, Indian wildlife officials said on Friday.

The antlered deer, known as the hangul, were once a major attraction in the mountain-ringed forests of Dachigam near Srinagar, summer capital of Kashmir and the focus of an 18-year old insurrection against Indian rule.

“The population of hangul as per the latest census has come down from 228 to 160 in the past four years,” Kashmir’s wildlife warden Rashid Naqash said.

The “cervus elaphus hangul” is the only surviving sub-species of the red deer family in the world, he said.

Some 5,000 of the animals, also known as the Kashmir stag, roamed the region in the late 1940s.

“It is a gradual decline but we are concerned and worried,” Naqash said after the release of a new state wildlife census.

He said his department had begun long-term measures to try to save what he called “the pride of Kashmir.” The wildlife department was “all set to go for captive breeding within a month or two” to save the deer, Naqash said. “By this, we will be able to prevent the animals’ extinction.” The deer will be bred at the Shikargah conservation reserve in Tral, 40 kilometres south of Srinagar.—AFP