Only a few hundred Hanguls, the fabled Kashmir stag, are reported to cling to survival. Once they roamed the valley in thousands. Today, fewer than 270 remain. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s confession that he has never truly seen one in the wild, despite living a short drive away, captures the tragedy: Kashmir’s own state animal has become a ghost in its homeland.

At a recent international conference in Srinagar, the Chief Minister voiced the worry that the Hangul may go the way of the Dodo and Woolly........

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