The Western Ghats, also known as the Sahyadri mountain range, is a mountain range that covers an area of 160,000 km2 (62,000 sq mi) in a stretch of 1,600 km (990 mi) parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, traversing the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the 36 biodiversity hotspots in the world. It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India. It contains a very large proportion of the country's flora and fauna, many of which are endemic to this region. The Western Ghats are older than the Himalayas. They influence Indian monsoon weather patterns by intercepting the rain-laden monsoon winds that sweep in from the south-west during late summer. The range runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain called the Western Coastal Plains along the Arabian Sea. A total of 39 areas in the Western Ghats, including national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests, were designated as world heritage sites in 2012 – twenty of them in Kerala, ten in Karnataka, six in Tamil Nadu and four in Maharashtra.
Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, also known as Sasan Gir, is a forest, national park, and wildlife sanctuary near Talala Gir in Gujarat, India. It is located 43 km (27 mi) north-east of Somnath, 65 km (40 mi) south-east of Junagadh and 60 km (37 mi) south-west of Amreli. It was established in 1965 in the erstwhile Nawab of Junagarh's private hunting area, with a total area of 1,410.30 km2 (544.52 sq mi), of which 258.71 km2 (99.89 sq mi) is fully protected as a national park and 1,151.59 km2 (444.63 sq mi) as wildlife sanctuary. It is part of the Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests ecoregion.
The chinkara, also known as the Indian gazelle, is a gazelle species native to India, Iran, Afghanistan And Pakistan.
Kali Tiger Reserve is a protected area and tiger reserve. It is located in Uttara Kannada district, in Karnataka, India. The park is a habitat of Bengal tigers, black panthers and Indian elephants, amongst other distinctive fauna. The Kali River flows through the tiger reserve and is the lifeline of the ecosystem and hence the name. The tiger reserve is spread over an area of 1300 square kilometres.
Nagarahole National Park is a national park located in Kodagu district and Mysore district in Karnataka, India.
The Deccan thorn scrub forests are a xeric shrubland ecoregion of south India and northern Sri Lanka. Historically this area was covered by tropical dry deciduous forest, but this only remains in isolated fragments. The vegetation now consists of mainly of southern tropical thorn scrub type forests. These consist of open woodland with thorny trees with short trunks and low, branching crowns; spiny and xerophytic shrubs; and dry grassland. This is the habitat of the great Indian bustard and blackbuck, though these and other animals are declining in numbers; this area was at one time home to large numbers of elephants and tigers. Almost 350 species of bird have been recorded here. The remaining natural habitat is threatened by overgrazing and invasive weeds, but there are a number of small protected areas which provide a haven for the wildlife. Trees in these forests have adapted to not require much water.
Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area and tiger reserve as part of the Project Tiger, situated in Chikkamagaluru district, 23 km (14 mi) south of Bhadravathi city, 38 km (24 mi) 20 km from Tarikere town, northwest of Chikkamagaluru and 283 km from Bengaluru city in Karnataka state, India. Bhadra sanctuary has a wide range of flora and fauna and is a popular place for day outings. The 1,875 m (6,152 ft) above MSL Hebbe Giri is the highest peak in the sanctuary.
Sira is a city and taluk headquarters of Sira Taluk of Tumakuru district in the state of Karnataka, India. It lies on the AH 47, NH 48.
Radhanagari Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary and natural World Heritage Site of category ix and x since 2012, located in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra State, India. It lies at the southern end of the Sahyadri hills in the Western Ghats. It is notable as the first declared wildlife sanctuary in Maharashtra, notified in 1958, as "Dajipur Wildlife Sanctuary" and is popularly known as the "Bison Sanctuary". Indian bison or gaur with a population around 1091 in 2014, is the flagship species of the area. It was notified as Radhanagari wildlife sanctuary vide notification No. WLP/1085/CR/588/ V/F-5, Dt.16.9.1985. The area around the Sanctuary was declared as Eco sensitive zone by Govt. of India on 15 October 2020
Kaggaladu is a village in the Sira Taluk of Tumkur district in the south of Karnataka, India. It is located 9 km to the northwest of Sira, a town on the Sira-Changavara Main Road. Since 1999, trees in Kaggaladu have been a breeding ground and haven for painted storks and grey herons. The heronry was first made known to the outside world in 1999 by Wildlife Aware Nature Club, an NGO based in Tumkur.
The state of Karnataka in South India has a rich diversity of flora and fauna. It has a recorded forest area of 38,720 km2 which constitutes 55
of the geographical area of the state. These forests support 25% of the elephant population and 20% of the tiger population of India. Many regions of Karnataka are still unexplored and new species of flora and fauna are still found. The mountains of the Western Ghats in the western region of Karnataka are a biodiversity hotspot. Two sub-clusters of the Western Ghats, Talacauvery and Kudremukh, are on a tentative list of sites that could be designated as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The Bandipur and Nagarahole national parks which fall outside these subclusters were included in the Nilgiri biosphere reserve in 1986, a UNESCO designation. In the Biligiriranga Hills the Eastern Ghats meet the Western Ghats. The state bird and state animal of Karnataka are Indian roller and the Indian elephant. The state tree and state flower are sandalwood and lotus. Karnataka is home to 524 tigers.
Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary and Mollem National Park is a 240 square kilometres (93 sq mi) protected area located in the Western Ghats of West India, in Dharbandora taluk, Goa State, along the eastern border with Karnataka. The area is situated near the town of Molem, 57 kilometres (35 mi) east of Panaji, the state capital of Goa. National Highway 4A divides it into two parts and the Mormugao - Londa railway line passes through the area. It is located between 15°15"30' to 15°29"30' N and 74°10"15' to 74°20"15' E. It contains several important temples dating to the Kadambas of Goa, and home to waterfalls, such as Dudhsagar Falls and Tambdi Falls. The parkland is also home to a community of nomadic buffalo herders known as the Dhangar.
JayamangaliBlackbuck Conservation Reserve is Tumkur district's only notified protected area. It neighbours Maidenahalli, a small village in Madhugiri Taluk, at the north-eastern tip of Tumkur district of Karnataka state, India. This area is a part of the plains of Deccan plateau and borders Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. It is a 798-acre (3.23 km2) patch of grassland with Eucalyptus and Acacia auriculiformis. It has the largest contiguous population of blackbuck in Karnataka, apart from Ranibennur Blackbuck Sanctuary.
Narayan Sarovar Sanctuary also popularly known as Narayan Sarovar Wildlife Sanctuary or Narayan Sarovar Chinkara Sanctuary notified as such in April 1981 and subsequently denotified in 1995 with reduced area, is a unique eco-system near Narayan Sarovar in the Lakhpat taluka of Kutch district in the state of Gujarat, India. The desert forest in this sanctuary is said to be the only one of its kind in India. Located in the arid zone, a part of it is a seasonal wetland. It has 15 threatened wildlife species and has desert vegetation comprising thorn and scrub forests. Its biodiversity has some rare animals and birds, and rare flowering plants. Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has identified it as one of the last remaining habitats of the cheetah in India and a possible reintroduction site for the species. The most sighted animal here is the chinkara, which is currently the flagship species of the sanctuary.
Kutch Bustard Sanctuary or Kachchh Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary, also known as Lala–Parjan Sanctuary, is located near Jakhau village in Taluka Abdasa, Gujarat, India. This sanctuary is one of the two great Indian bustard sanctuaries in Gujarat; the other one is in Jamnagar. It was declared as a sanctuary in July 1992, specifically for the conservation of the great Indian bustard, the heaviest flying bird belonging to the avian family of Otididae. However, the sanctuary presently legally covers a protected area of about 2 square kilometres (0.77 sq mi) of area (202.86 hectares of fenced land only and is the smallest sanctuary in the country. Several suggestions have been made to vastly increase the size of this sanctuary as it is a breeding ground of the endangered great Indian bustard. The reason is that its ecological zone is much larger on account of anthropogenic and cattle population pressure that are considered as a ‘biotic threat’ to this omnivorous species.
Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve is a protected area and tiger reserve located along the area straddling both the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats in the Erode District of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The Sathyamangalam Forest Division is part of the Bramhagiri-Nilgiris-Eastern Ghats Elephant Reserve notified in 2003. In 2008, part of the Sathyamangalam Forest Division was declared as a wildlife sanctuary and enlarged in 2011, it covers a forest area of 1,411.6 km2 (545.0 sq mi). It is the largest wildlife sanctuary in Tamil Nadu. In 2013, an area of 1,408.6 km2 (543.9 sq mi) of the erstwhile sanctuary was notified as a tiger reserve. It was the fourth tiger reserve established in Tamil Nadu as a part of Project Tiger and is the third largest in the state.
Sanjay Gubbi is a conservation biologist based in Karnataka, India. His work focuses on the conservation of large carnivores like tigers and leopards, working on applied aspects and understanding their population biology, proposing conservation policies for their protection, and working to minimize human-wildlife conflict. He currently works as a scientist with Nature Conservation Foundation, a Mysore based NGO.
Rangayyanadurga Four–horned antelope Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary in Karnataka India, aimed for the protection of Four-horned antelopes. The four-horned antelope is classified as Vulnerable species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Established in 2011, it is the only four-horned antelope sanctuary in Karnataka.
Yadahalli Chinkara Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary in Karnataka India, aimed for the protection of chinkaras. Established in 2016, it is the first chinkara sanctuary in Karnataka.
Jogimatti Wildlife Sanctuary is located in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka. The wooded region of Jogimatti is a hill station and is rich in biodiversity. The area is picturesque, and is relatively compact with a wide range of flora and fauna. It is notified through an official notification on 23 December 2015. Jogimatti Sanctuary covers an area of 100.48 km2 of grasslands and shrub forests, approximately. In the hilly forests of Jogimatti jackals, wolves, sloth bears and leopards roam amidst windmills.
