Barnadi sanctuary
GS PAPER II: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
Context: One of Assam’s smallest wildlife sanctuaries could be the newest home of the tiger in the State.
- Wildlife specialists have the first photographic evidence of a tiger inhabiting the 26.22 sq. km Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary straddling northern Assam’s Baksa and Udalguri districts and bordering Bhutan.
- The tiger was captured in camera traps during an exercise.
- This small habitat is well connected to a corridor between the Royal Manas National Park and the Jomotshakngkha Wildlife Sanctuary.
- The 1,057sq. km Royal Manas and the 334.73sq. km Jomotshangkha are in Bhutan and part of the Greater Manas landscape.
- Barnadi was once connected to Assam’s Manas National Park about 80 km to its west, but the area in between has been fragmented due to human habitation.
- This sanctuary is named after the river Bornadi, which flows on its western border.
- The sanctuary was established in 1980 to protect the hispid hare and pigmy hog
- To the east of Barnadi, along the India-Bhutan border are the Khalingduar Reserve Forests and Sonai-Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary where the captive-bred pygmy hog, the smallest and rarest species of wild pigs, was first rehabilitated.
- Barnadi may not be a permanent habitat of the tiger, but the photographic evidence of a flagship species indicates better conservation efforts, particularly with the number of tigers in Manas National Park increasing threefold to 30 in 10 years
- Mizoram’s Dampa Tiger Reserve, measuring 500 sq. km, has a similar status. Tigers visit the wildlife habitat occasionally from the adjoining Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.
1.png)
