Study says maintaining landscape connectivity is essential for preventing genetic isolation
Abdul Wahab Khan
Panaji : Goa may be a small part of India’s Western Ghats, but it holds strategically important habitat for the sloth bear, with a new national assessment identifying 357 square kilometres of suitable habitat in the state, including 37 sq km classified as “very highly suitable” for the species.
The findings are contained in the ‘Habitat Suitability Assessment for Sloth Bears Across Tiger Landscapes in India’, a technical report published by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in July 2026.
The study is the first comprehensive national-level assessment of sloth bear habitat suitability across India’s tiger landscapes. It used information generated during the 2018 and 2022 All India Tiger Estimation exercises, which also recorded evidence of other wildlife, providing a valuable national dataset for assessing sloth bear distribution and habitat.
Goa has 37 sq km of very highly suitable, 149 sq km highly suitable, 28 sq km moderately suitable and 143 sq km low-suitable habitat. Very highly suitable habitat is concentrated around Mollem National Park, while Cotigao, Netravali and Mhadei wildlife sanctuaries contain highly suitable habitat. The assessment identifies the Mhadei-Bhagwan Mahaveer landscape as an important ecological bottleneck facilitating wildlife movement.
Goa’s habitat is modest compared with neighbouring Karnataka’s 14,770 sq km, including 860 sq km of very highly suitable habitat. Maharashtra has an even larger 16,350 sq km, including 1,922 sq km very highly suitable, while Kerala has 6,867 sq km, including 959 sq km very highly suitable. Tamil Nadu has 13,258 sq km of suitable habitat, of which 1,576 sq km is very highly suitable.
Significantly, the researchers have said that “maintaining landscape connectivity across this region is essential for preventing genetic isolation of sloth bear populations”, while also supporting movements of other wide-ranging species including tigers.
The study used MaxEnt v3.4 species-distribution modelling, analysing sloth bear presence from sign and camera-trap surveys against environmental variables including human modification, distance from forest, elevation, aridity and vegetation greenness. The model had a mean test AUC of 0.80, indicating strong predictive performance. Human modification emerged as the most influential factor, accounting for 60.4 per cent of model contribution.
Nationally, suitable sloth bear habitat was estimated at 231,899 sq km, with 28 per cent inside protected areas and 19.6 per cent within tiger reserves.
The report states that “human pressure emerged as the primary environmental determinant governing habitat suitability”.
For Goa, the findings underline that the state’s importance lies not in the size of its habitat but in its connectivity value. Fragmentation caused by roads, development and other pressures could isolate sloth bears and disrupt wildlife movement across the wider Western Ghats.
The report was authored by Dr Bilal Habib, Dr Vishnupriya Kolipakam, Dr Ujjwal Kumar, Deb Ranjan Laha, Dr Dhruv Jain, MA Singanjude, Dr Vaibhav C Mathur, Dr Sanjayan Kumar, Dr S Kumar and GS Bharadwaj.
