Activities Pattern of Wild Water Buffalo (Bubalus arnee Kerr, 1792) in Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal (A case study of Kusaha area)

Abstract

This study was done on the diurnal activity patterns of two different herds of Wild Water Buffalo (Bubalus arnee) in Kusaha area of Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve; a flood plain of Koshi river. Four main activities as grazing, resting, standing and wallowing of diurnal patterns for four seasons were studied by scan sampling method in the year of 2011 and 2012. It was found that a herd of Wild Water Buffalo grazed by walking instead of single place for 50%, rested 27%, stood 13% and wallow 10% of observation of average diurnal period. So they are good browser.

Seasonally, it was found that they graze similar in average but comparatively more in winter season i.e. 57% of a day time. Their highest activities revealed for resting was in monsoon season 32%, standing was in winter season 20% and wallowing was in spring season 21% of day time but the least are for grazing in monsoon season 42%, resting in winter season 23%, standing in spring season 8% and wallowing in winter season 0% of a day time.

For the comparative study set hypothesis were, “four major activities patterns will be same in between male band and mixed herd” and tested as null hypothesis by using popular student test i.e. t-test. It had accepted only one activity is wallowing (p-value > 0.05). So there is no significant difference in wallowing pattern in between male band and mixed herd. But other activities like grazing (p-value < 0.05), resting (p-value < 0.05) and standing (p-value < 0.05) are significantly different between these male band and mixed herd of Wild Water Buffalo.

Generally male band was observed more resting (42% vs 12%) and more wallowing (12% vs 9%) than mixed herd. Similarly mixed herd was observed more grazing (62% vs 37%) and more standing (17% vs 9%) than male band in average diurnal time (11 hours and 30 minutes) of a day.

Key Words: Flood plains, Diurnal patterns, Browser, Scan sampling, t-test.