The giant squirrel. Picture by Biplab Basak

Siliguri, Jan. 25: Visitors to Gorumara National Park can now easily sight a new species — the bicolour Malayan giant squirrel.

Foresters of Jalpaiguri today said earlier the squirrels were found in small numbers at Gorumara. In the past few months, however, their population has increased considerably, leading to easy sighting of the animal.

Tapas Das, the divisional forest officer (wildlife II), said there was a time when only 10-12 such squirrels were found here.

“However, in the past few months, we have identified about 40 of them in different areas of the national park, like the banks of the Garati river, and watch towers in Jatraprasad and Medla.”

The species is included in the list of endangered animals under Schedule II of the wildlife protection act.

Das said collecting information and photographing the 31 rhinos of Gorumara for a photo album and a database of the animals would start from the first week of February.

“The database will contain photographs of all rhinos taken from different angles, their age, sex, nature, identification marks, health records, injuries, the area within which they usually roam and other details,” the officer said.