Sariska Tiger Reserve
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Sariska Tiger Reserve is an Indian National Park located in the Alwar District of the state of Rajasthan. Originally a hunting preserve of the erstwhile Alwar state, the area was declared a wildlife reserve in 1955. In 1978 it was declared a Tiger Reserve and is now a part of India's Project Tiger scheme. The present area of the park is 866 km². The park is situated 107 km north east of the state capital Jaipur.
Some of the wildlife found in the Sariska Tiger Reserve include the tiger, leopard, jungle cat, hyena, jackal, chital, sambar, carecal, langur, wild boar,Four Horned Deer Chowsingha and several species of birds.
The reserve is also the location of several archeological sites such as the Neelkanth Mahadev Temple and Garh Rajor temples from the 9th and 10th centuries and the Kankwadi fort. The Kankwadi fort, located near the centre of the park is where, in the 17th century, Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb briefly imprisoned his brother Dara Shikoh in the battle for succession of the Mughal throne. The area also has historical buildings associated with the Maharajas of Alwar such as The Sariska Palace the royal hunting lodge of the former Maharaja of Alwar state Jai Singh.
From the summers of 2004 there were strong and persistent reports - mainly from the people involved in tourism - that no tigers were being sighted in Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan. It was not only that tigers were not being seen but also and more alarmingly, there were no indirect evidence of tiger’s presence (such as pugmarks, scratch marks on trees etc) being found. The Rajasthan Forest Department took the stand that “the tigers had temporarily migrated outside the reserve and would be back after the rains.” The Project Tiger backed this assumption. In January, a leading English national Daily broke the news that there were no tigers left in Sariska. Thus broke open the Third Tiger Crisis. Soon the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Project Tiger Directorate declared an “emergency tiger census” in Sariska. After a two month exercise they finally declared the bad news that Sariska indeed did not have any tigers left.
[edit] General information
- Area: 866 km² total (497 km² core, 369 km² buffer)
- Altitude: Between 300 m and 722 m MSL
- Rainfall: Average 650mm (per annum)
- Forest Types: Tropical Dry Deciduous and Tropical Thorn
[edit] External links
- Government of India -- Project Tiger
- Wildlife Protection Society of India
- Rajasthan Tourism Page
- Article at National Geographic
