National Parks
India's first wildlife park, Jim Corbett National Park, was formed in 1936. Once
a popular hunting ground among the British, the park was named in honor of the
late Jim Corbett, a legendary hunter-naturalist turned author and photographer
who helped in demarcating the park's boundaries.Today India has dozens of
national parks and hundreds of wildlife sanctuaries. The preserves are committed
to maintaining the delicate ecosystems necessary to ensure the survival of both
flora and fauna.
India's national parks teem with an astounding variety of animal and plant
life. Ranthambor encompasses nearly 152 square miles of dry deciduous forest in
southwestern Rajasthan, where the landscape is dotted with ancient banyan trees,
dhok and pipal trees, clusters of mango trees and and evergreens. The diversity
of flora there includes 300 trees and 50 aquatic plants.
As for fauna, India's parks play an enormously significant role in the
protection of India's wild animals, including its tiger population. The parks
provide a safe haven for tigers, which outside the parks are forced to compete
with about 100 million humans who make their livelihood from India's forests.
Indian tigers were once threatened by the shooting safaris of the Maharajas and
British colonists, but today an even greater threat is posed by the demand for
tiger bones and other body parts demanded by the practitioners of"traditional"
medicine in certain regions of Asia.
India's parks protect other species of wildlife, too. For example, Little
Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, situated in the Thar Desert, is a sanctuary for the last
population of Indian wild ass, and India's greatest bird sanctuary can be found
in Keoladeo Ghana National Park, more commonly known by its old name, Bharatpur.
Formerly the shooting preserve of the Maharaja of Bharatpur, where in 1938 the
Viceroy of India's party shot 4,273 birds in one day, today the park protects
3,000 species of bird.
Some of the rarest wildlife on the planet can be found in India's national
parks, such as the golden langur, the world's rarest monkey. Golden langurs can
be found only in a small patch of forest on the Manas River, which forms the
border between the Manas Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan and the Manas National
Park in India. Gir Forest holds the last surviving population of Asiatic lion in
the world, and Kaziranga National Park in Assam is home to a large population of
one-horned rhinoceroses and wild buffalo. For those eager to observe elephants,
Bandipur, in the shadow of the Western Ghats, is one of the finest habitats of
the Asian elephant.
The parks also are rich in history. For example, at Bandhavgarh National
Park, set among the Vindhya Hills of Madhya Pradesh, caves dug into the
sandstone of an ancient fort have inscriptions dating from the 1st century BC.
Ranthambor derives its name from the fort of Ranthambor, which sits on a rocky
outcrop in the forest and dates to the 11th century, when it was a vital citadel
for the control of central India. Madhya Pradesh's forests were immortalized by
Rudyard Kipling in his Jungle Books.
Depending on the area and terrain National Parks provide ample opportunities to
the visitors to have a close encounters with the wilds. But what is so exquisite
about the Indian National Parks is the variance that they are equipped with.
Whether it comes to the flora, avifauna, and aquafauna, or witnessing various
wild forms in their natural surroundings on an elephant or inside a jeep, wild
ventures in are simply amazing!
Some of the best jewels of Indian
wilderness include the Great Himalayan National Park, Dachigam National Park
near Srinagar, Corbett National Park in Uttar Pradesh, which is also a famous
tiger reserve, Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, and Sundarbans National
Park in West Bengal. Worth visiting in the east indian part in "The Land of
Rhino" Assam is Kaziranga.
