20 blackbucks rewilded in Gujarat's Banni Grasslands

18 August 2026National

Twenty blackbucks (15 females, 5 males) were released into the Banni Grasslands, Kutch, Gujarat, in a translocation and rewilding exercise, moved from the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre (Vantara), Jamnagar, after approvals from the Central Zoo Authority and Gujarat's Chief Wildlife Warden. Background & Context: This is the first tranche of a wider Union Environment Ministry-approved programme to move 500 blackbucks and 100 chinkaras across Gujarat to restore native herbivore populations — a prey-base augmentation exercise similar in principle to India's larger carnivore-reintroduction efforts (e.g., Project Cheetah at Kuno National Park). It also spotlights Vantara, the Jamnagar rescue-and-rehabilitation centre that has repeatedly featured in current affairs as a source facility for wildlife translocation and conservation programmes across India.

Static GK

Blackbuck is the state animal of Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh | Banni Grasslands lie near the Great Rann of Kutch | Central Zoo Authority regulates zoos/captive wildlife under the WPA, 1972

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