From the forests of Arunachal Pradesh to the jetties of Goa, two recent stories from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) speak to the breadth of what conservation work looks like on the ground.

Two more chances in Pakke

In back-to-back rescues, two male Asiatic black bear cubs have been brought to safety at WTI’s Centre for Bear Rehabilitation and Conservation (CBRC) in Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh. The two incidents were separate — but the destination is the same: India’s only dedicated facility for hand-raising and rehabilitating orphaned bear cubs.

The Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Its cubs — most often orphaned when their mothers fall victim to poaching — are fragile and require sustained, specialist care. At CBRC, the process is methodical and patient: cubs are hand-raised over several months, weaned off milk, taken on daily forest walks by experienced animal keepers who teach them to forage for termites, tubers and wild fruits, and eventually fitted with radio collars before being released into the wild for post-release monitoring. Since the centre was established in 2002, over 85 bears have passed through its care. The two new arrivals bring the next chapter of that quiet, continuous work.

Conservation in colour

On India’s opposite coast, WTI has been fighting for a very different creature’s survival — with paint. As part of its Pan-India Whale Shark Conservation Project, the organisation commissioned a series of large-scale mural artworks at fish landing sites across Goa in March 2026, targeting the fishing communities whose nets pose the greatest accidental threat to the species.

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is the world’s largest fish, Endangered on the IUCN Red List, and legally protected in India since 2001 under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act — the first fish species in the country to receive that distinction. Despite this, accidental entanglement in fishing nets remains a serious hazard, particularly during peak seasons. WTI’s murals — painted near the Talpona, Cutbona, Chapora, and Malim jetties by local Goan artists — carry the message plainly: Cut the nets, save Goa’s whale sharks.

The mural project extends what has been one of Indian conservation’s genuine success stories. WTI launched its whale shark campaign in Gujarat in 2004; since then, over 1,000 whale sharks have been rescued and released along India’s west coast, and fishers who once hunted the species now voluntarily cut their nets to free entangled animals, with WTI compensating them for damaged gear. Goa is the latest front in that expanding effort.

Sources: Wildlife Trust of India | Deccan Herald | Mongabay India