Hard Ground Barasingha Cervus duvaceli branderi. Because of its adaptation to hard ground habitat is regarded as a distinct sub species.
Found only in Kanha National Park, the race branderi is named after A. A. Dunbar Brander who was conservator of forests in the Central Provinces in the 1920s and author of Wild Animals of Central India (1923).
At one time to be more precise in 1970 the population of this barasingha had declined to a mere 66. Indeed when we had first visited Kanha in 2003 the barasingha were confined to a separate enclosure.
But since then due to a reduced human disturbance, improvement in grassland vegetation the number has increased to slightly more than 500 and during our visit in March this year we were told that a large number of these were freed into the jungle and I was lucky enough to capture this young male against a setting sun – This also one of the first photos from my Canon 50D mounted with the 500mm f4.0 lens