With striking colouration and gorgeous spiraled horns, the beautiful blackbuck, Antilope cervicapra, is usually seen in large herds in open plains covered with shrubs or forests with wide expanses of grass.

Blackbucks have keen eyesight and are extremely agile. When young, the male blackbuck’s coat, like the female’s, is yellowish all over, but turns black in about three years. Blackbucks were among the most common wild animals in India before 1947, but vicious and indiscriminate hunting and loss of natural habitat have led to their decline.

Some people say there were probably about four million blackbucks in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century. The figure drastically fell to about 8,000 in the 1960s.

Today, however, blackbucks are fortunately protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.