The Ganges is a trans-boundary river of Asia which flows through India and Bangladesh. The 2,525 km (1,569 mi) river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It flows south and east through the Gangetic plain of North India, receiving the right-bank tributary, the Yamuna, which also rises in the western Indian Himalayas, and several left-bank tributaries from Nepal that account for the bulk of its flow. In West Bengal state, India, a feeder canal taking off from its right bank diverts 50% of its flow southwards, artificially connecting it to the Hooghly river. The Ganges continues into Bangladesh, its name changing to the Padma. It is then joined by the Jamuna, the lower stream of the Brahmaputra, and eventually the Meghna, forming the major estuary of the Ganges Delta, and emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system is the second largest river on earth by discharge.
The Amazon river dolphin, also known as the boto, bufeo or pink river dolphin, is a species of toothed whale which is native to and is exclusively of South America classified in the family Iniidae. Three subspecies are currently recognized: I. g. geoffrensis, I. g. boliviensis and I. g. humboldtiana while position of Araguaian river dolphin within the clade is still unclear. The three subspecies are distributed in the Amazon basin, the upper Madeira River in Bolivia, and the Orinoco basin, respectively.
The Bengal tiger is a population of the Panthera tigris tigris subspecies and the nominate tiger subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna.
South Asian river dolphins are toothed whales in the genus Platanista, which inhabit fresh water habitats in the northern Indian subcontinent. They were historically considered to be one species with the Ganges river dolphin and the Indus river dolphin being subspecies. Genetic and morphological evidence led to their being described as separate species in 2021. The Ganges and Indus river dolphins are estimated to have diverged 550,000 years ago. They are the only living members of the family Platanistidae and the superfamily Platanistoidea. Fossils of ancient relatives date to the late Oligocene.
The Irrawaddy dolphin is a euryhaline species of oceanic dolphin found in scattered subpopulations near sea coasts and in estuaries and rivers in parts of the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. It closely resembles the Australian snubfin dolphin, which was not described as a separate species until 2005. It has a slate blue to a slate gray color. Although found in much of the riverine and marine zones of South and Southeast Asia, the only concentrated lagoon populations are found in Chilika Lake in Odisha, India and Songkhla Lake in southern Thailand.
The Ganges river dolphin is a species of toothed whale classified in the family Platanistidae. It lives in the Ganges and related rivers of South Asia, namely in the countries of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. It is related to the much smaller Indus river dolphin which lives in the Indus River in Pakistan and the Beas River of northwestern India.
The Sundarbans National Park is a national park, tiger reserve and biosphere reserve in West Bengal, India. It is part of the Sundarbans on the Ganges Delta and adjacent to the Sundarban Reserve Forest in Bangladesh. It is located to south-west of the Bangladesh. The delta is densely covered by mangrove forests, and is one of the largest reserves for the Bengal tiger. It is also home to a variety of bird, reptile and invertebrate species, including the salt-water crocodile. The present Sundarban National Park was declared as the core area of Sundarban Tiger Reserve in 1973 and a wildlife sanctuary in 1977. On 4 May 1984 it was declared a national park. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1987, and it has been designated as a Ramsar site since 2019. It is considered as a World Network of Biosphere Reserve from 1989.
The Ganges shark is a critically endangered species of requiem shark found in the Ganges River and the Brahmaputra River of India and Bangladesh. It is often confused with the more common bull shark, which also inhabits the Ganges River and is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Ganges shark. The genus is currently considered to contain three recent species; genetic evidence has shown that both the Borneo river shark and Irrawaddy river shark should be regarded as synonyms of the Ganges shark, expanding the range of the species to Pakistan, Myanmar, Borneo, and Java. While the other members of the genus Glyphis occur in coastal marine waters as well as rivers, the Ganges shark is found only in fresh water, making it the world's only exclusively freshwater shark. The species remains poorly known and very rare.
Sundarbans is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. Sundarban Reserve Forest (SRF) of Bangladesh is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal. It comprises closed and open mangrove forests, land used for agricultural purpose, mudflats and barren land, and is intersected by multiple tidal streams and channels. Sundarbans is home to the world's largest area of mangrove forests. Four protected areas in the Sundarbans are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, viz. Sundarbans West (Bangladesh), Sundarbans South (Bangladesh), Sundarbans East (Bangladesh) and Sundarbans National Park (India).
The Ghaghara River, called Karnali River in Nepal, Mapcha Tsangpo in Tibet, and the lower Ghaghara in Awadh called Sarayu River, is a perennial trans-boundary river that originates in the northern slopes of the Himalayas in the Tibetan Plateau, cuts through the Himalayas in Nepal and joins the Sharda River at Brahmaghat in India. Together they form the Ghaghara River, a major left bank tributary of the Ganges. With a length of 507 km (315 mi) it is the longest river in Nepal. The total length of Ghaghara River up to its confluence with the Ganges at Revelganj in Bihar is 1,080 km (670 mi). It is the largest tributary of the Ganges by volume and the second largest by length after Yamuna.
Pseudoplatystoma is a genus of several South American catfish species of family Pimelodidae. The species are known by a number of different common names. They typically inhabit major rivers where they prefer the main channels and tend to stay at maximum depth, but some species can also be seen in lakes, flooded forests, and other freshwater habitats. They have robust bodies, and are important food fish. Recently, their population size has been on the drastic decline due to a variety of factors including overfishing and habitat destruction due to the construction of hydroelectric dams.
Valmiki National Park is a tiger reserve in the West Champaran District of Bihar, India. It is the only national park in Bihar. Valmiki Tiger Reserve covers 898.45 km2 (346.89 sq mi), which is 17.4% of the total geographical area of the district. As of 2018, there were 40 tigers in the Reserve.
The Upper Gangetic Plains moist deciduous forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion of northern India.
The Barak River flows 900 kilometres (560 mi) through the states of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Assam in India. Further it enters Bangladesh where it bifurcates into the Surma river and the Kushiyara river which converges again to become the Meghna river before forming the Ganges Delta with the Ganga and the Brahmaputra rivers and flowing into the Bay of Bengal. Of its length 524 km (326 mi) is in India, 31 km (19 mi) on the Indo–Bangladesh border and the rest is in Bangladesh. The upper part of its navigable part is in India — 121 km (75 mi) between Lakhipur and Bhanga, declared as National Waterway 6, (NW-6) since the year 2016. It drains a basin of 52,000 km2 (20,000 sq mi), of which 41,723 km2 (16,109 sq mi) lies in India, 1.38% (rounded) of the country. The water and banks host or are visited by a wide variety of flora and fauna.
India is home to a large variety of wildlife. It is a biodiversity hotspot with various ecosystems ranging from the Himalayas in the north to the evergreen rain forests in the south, the sands of the west to the marshy mangroves of the east. India lies within the Indomalayan realm and is the home to about 7.6% of mammal, 14.7% of amphibian, 6% of bird, 6.2% of reptilian, and 6.2% of flowering plant species. India's forests contain about 500 species of mammals and more than 1300 bird species.
The Manas River, known in Bhutan as the Drangme Chhu, is a transboundary river in the Himalayan foothills between southern Bhutan, India, and China. It is the largest of Bhutan's four major river systems, with the other three being the Amo Chu or Torsa River, the Wang Chu or Raidak, and the Puna Tshang Chu or Sankosh. It is met by three other major streams before it again debouches into India in western Assam. The river flows for a total length of 400 kilometres (250 mi), including through Tibet for 24 km (15 mi), Bhutan for 272 kilometres (169 mi), and Assam for 104 kilometres (65 mi) before it joins the mighty Brahmaputra River at Jogighopa. A major tributary of the Manas, the Aie River, joins it in Assam at Bangpari.
Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary is located in Bhagalpur District of Bihar, India. The sanctuary is a 60 kilometers stretch of the Ganges River from Sultanganj to Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur district. notified as Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary in 1991, it is the protected area for the endangered Gangetic dolphins in Asia. Once found in abundance, only a few hundred remain, of which half are found here.
The Indus river dolphin, also known as the bhulan in Urdu and Sindhi, is a species of toothed whale in the family Platanistidae. It is endemic to the Indus River Basin of Pakistan and northwestern India. This dolphin was the first discovered side-swimming cetacean. It is patchily distributed in five small, sub-populations that are separated by irrigation barrages.
Ravindra Kumar Sinha is a Padma Shri awarded Indian biologist and environmentalist. Currently, he is Vice-Chancellor of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University and formerly of Nalanda Open University. Previously he was the Head of the Department of Zoology at Patna University, and is a pioneer researcher and wildlife conservationist, famous for his efforts for the conservation of Gangetic Dolphins, he is popularly known as the "Dolphin Man of India".
Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) is an Indian not-for-profit organisation based in Mumbai which was registered in 2002. WCT currently works in and around 160 protected areas across 23 states in India and works closely with government bodies, corporates, communities and local NGOs through funding and technical support, knowledge partnering and consultancy.
