State animal of Jammu & Kashmir

Hangul

The Kashmir stag — the last red deer of the Himalaya.

Critically Endangered · around 289 left in the wild
~289
left in the wild (2023)
141 km²
Dachigam National Park
1
red deer race left in India

The animal

A deer found nowhere else

The Hangul is the only surviving subspecies of red deer in the Indian subcontinent. Males carry broad, branching antlers and move through the oak and pine forests of the Kashmir Himalaya in small groups.

Its last stronghold is Dachigam National Park, just outside Srinagar, with a smaller second population in Tral Wildlife Sanctuary. Beyond these protected valleys, the animal has almost vanished.

A century of decline

From thousands to a few hundred

Around 5,000 Hangul roamed Kashmir in the early 1900s. Habitat loss, human pressure and poaching collapsed the population to under 200. Careful protection has since nudged the numbers up — but they remain perilously low.

~5,000 early 1900s 1968 · ~180 2023 · 289
Estimated wild population. Sources: J&K Dept. of Wildlife Protection, Wildlife Institute of India, IUCN.

Why it matters

One park, one chance

The Hangul is a test of whether a single protected valley can hold a critically endangered species across decades. Low fawn survival, shrinking range, and predation pressure keep the recovery fragile. It survives under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and the long-running Project Hangul.