PARSA, Nepal — On the two-lane Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya road, a long line of red and yellow trucks carrying petroleum forms as traffic is brought to a standstill by a car stalled in the middle of the road. Amid the cacophony of honking horns, rumbling engines and the occasional screech of brakes, the car is towed away. Dust clouds rise again from the asphalt as the trucks pick up speed along this crucial trade route between Nepal and India. Flanking this busy highway is the 627-square-kilometer (242-square-mile) Parsa National Park, Nepal’s newest and home to subtropical forest and grasslands that form part of the vital Chitwan-Parsa Complex. This is a land where Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), tigers (Panthera tigris) and other wildlife move about their traditional migratory routes in search of sustenance and mating. The road section here is a hotspot for wildlife roadkill in Nepal. Between 2016 and 2018, 60 animals, mostly deer, snakes and monkeys, were struck and killed by vehicles in Parsa, with 75% of the incidents occurring on the Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya stretch. In the past two years, the figure stood at 39. In 2021, an adult female tiger was among the casualties. The effect of the highway on wildlife is expected to be amplified under a government plan to expand the road to four lanes to ease congestion and cut down on travel time. “We are working on plans to expand the eastern section of the East-West Highway, including the Amlekhgunj-Pathlaiya section,” said Shova Giri, assistant director at an…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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