Wild Pleasures at the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary
Posted On December 14, 2012
Visit Wayanad and come back totally enchanted and hypnotized. There is something so cherishable in this beautiful verdant paradise in South India that tours here never seem to end. The Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary thus occupies a memorable place in the heart of every traveller and is a great place to visit on tours to this part often world in India. Popular as the habitat of the Asiatic elephant there is something very enigmatic about Wayanad and the sanctuary only goes to prove it further. Today Wayanad is considered to be the safest haven for tigers.
In fact a recent tiger monitoring has said that this could perhaps be the place where you would get the larges tiger population in the southern part of India. This monitoring conducted by the forest department goes a long way to making Wayanad an accepted tiger paradise here. Karnataka’s Bandipur tiger Reserve tops the tiger habitats in India and Wayanad comes a close second. It is located adjacent to the Bandipur Sanctuary.
Spanning over an area of around 344.44 square kilometres, the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary is a portion of the Nilgir Biosphere Reserve and has had at least 80 tigers alongwith the tiger cubs.
The main method that was used to find out the tiger population is by camera trapping. This is a method in which the tigers are identified from the photographs. There were around 32 cameras that were installed and used at a time and they were spread in the forest range of the sanctuary. the entire monitoring took around four months to complete and it was an exhaustive study of the tiger population in this heavenly region in Kerala.
Around 1,200 photographs of wild cats were taken and recorded and then there were professionals who analyzed these photographs with the help of a scientific framework. In the year 2010, the Ministry of Forest and Environment showed a data that showed that the tiger population was around 1,706 . In the year 2006 it was 1,411 thus showing a significant increase. The habitat is very natural and healthy and the entire topography and landscape of Wayanad helps the tigers to live here comfortably and thus flourish. The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve has the sanctuary as its main part and it is inclusive of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu and the Rajiv Gandhi National park in Karnataka alongwith the Bandipur national in the same state. The entire sanctuary is spread over an area of around 3000 square kilometres.The big cats or tigers could be easily protected due to the fact that the Mudumalai and the Bandipur sanctuaries were adjacent and thus could have an intermingling.
Poaching was rampant here in this region some years back. Today the entire region is protected well due to the efforts of the Government in maintaining a vigilant watch on the poachers and organizing stringent measures to nab the poachers in action. Anti poaching camps were set up and patrolling was intensified thus helping in banishing poaching and also in encouraging the herbivore to thrive here.
Thus the healthy habitat become even more comfortable for the tigers and the forest officials were more than happy to protect it. So the area had to be declared a tiger sanctuary so that outsiders would stay off and the species would be well protected.
The efforts to declare Wayanad as a Wildlife Sanctuary have helped in proving that this is indeed a great tiger haven in India. the data that showed the level of tiger population here is very important and the fact that this is the reason the region is so well protected is a case in mention. Declaring the Wayanad region as a reserve would surely help in managing the entire tiger population and the area. this would also enhance the management of the tiger population in the Nilgiri Biosphere.
The tiger population is declining in India and with places like Wayanad it is a relief that this is not going to be so. With Wayanad having the best surroundings and conditions for the tiger to survive, the fact that it is going to be the best sanctuary for the wild cats is enough to keep the wildlife enthusiasts happy.
Wayanad with its beautiful ambience and natural surroundings is thus surely a magnificent region for a tiger sanctuary.
