International Day of the Markhor

Pakistan has a wide variety of wild goats and sheeps belonging to subfamily Caprinae and family bovidae. There are seven Caprinae species which are found in Pakistan, and further partitioned into 12 subspecies . Markhor is one of the members of family Bovidae and subfamily Caprinae, which was rstly portrayed by Wagner in 1839. The word Markhor is imitative of Persian linguistic means snake eater. However, it is mostly considered as Pashto driven word "MAR Akhkar". "MAR" represents snake and "Akhkar" to horns. Later on passage of time, the word became Markhor. On the basis of horns Markhor has two sub-species such as straight horned and are horned Markhor. The straight horned Markhor further divided into Kabul and Suleiman Markhor while, are horned Markhor into Astor and Kashmir Markhor, The markhor is also divided into five types that are found in Pakistan and recognized as Astor Markhor (Capra falconeri falconeri), Kashmir or Pir Panjal Markhor (Capra f...

The data in two years (2015-2017) have been collected for Astor Markhor from five different districts of  Gilgit Baltistan. An enumeration of 1087 animal species in 15 community controlled hunting areas have been found . It includes 24%, 36% 21% and 19% males, females, youngsters and toddlers respectively. Generally, provinces contain a total population growth of about 0.13 animals per kilometer.  The population growth and density of Markhor species in several areas was recorded, rstly kargah became at the peak point having 211 species, then Bunji having 187 number of species. There are 119 species in doyan, 75 range in sakwar-jutial-barmas and 74 in tangir area etc. In Pakistan, there are a total ve subspecies of Markhor. One subspecies is so-called as chiltan Markhor commonly known as wild goat. Remaining four subspecies are straight horned Markhor (SHM) such as Kabul and Suleiman Marhor and two are horned Markhor (FHM) as Astor and Kashmir Markhor. A total number of FHM wa...