author(s)
Sanober Rasool, SA Hamdani, Abdul Hai, Aaliya Fayaz and AH Akand

abstract
India is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world, affecting overall 85% of Indian land and more than fifty million people. There has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters that has posed a threat not only to the people but to livestock as well. Livestock in particular have remained highly vulnerable to almost all sort of natural disaster but the most frequent and vulnerable of all types is the occurrence of flood. The state of Jammu and Kashmir was hit by severe floods in year 2014 which left a great impact on people as well as on the livestock. The present study was purposively designed and carried out in three flood affected districts of Kashmir Division namely Pulwama in South, Srinagar in Central and Bandipora in North of Kashmir based on maximum inundation levels reported from these areas. The results depicted that there was a loss of 1-3 cattle/buffalo per household during the floods of 2014with maximum herd loss of cattle/buffalo reported from Pulwama District (42-82%). With respect to small ruminants there was an average loss of two sheep/goat per household with highest flock loss reported from Bandipora District (>92%). A minimum loss of 1-8 sheep and goat per household was reported by some respondents (39.58%). With respect to backyard poultry, sizeable portion of respondents (39.16%) reported to have a loss of greater than 81% with the highest loss (>81%) from Pulwama District. The findings of the study revealed that the preparedness, response and recovery mechanisms were not adequate thus making the condition aggravated causing maximum casualty of animals and huge economic losses to livestock farmers of the state.