4-year Impasse Eases, Ban On Night Traffic Via Bandipur Stays

Four years after the ban on night traffic on two inter-state highways passing through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve (BTR), the Karnataka government has decided to upgrade alternative routes towards a lasting solution to the issue.

Elephants are highly social animals, which are active for 18 hours a day and travel as far as 30 miles a day.

A report submitted by an NGO, Empower Foundation, to the forest department has stated that lions should not be translocated and the big cats should be allowed to migrate naturally only.

Tiger Reserve status accorded for the 1.40 lakh hectares of Sathyamangalam with 90,000 hectares as core zone is a shot in the arm for conservation of rare flora and fauna besides combating the pressures of poaching as the Sathyamangalam valley is on the State border.

Welcoming the decision of the Union Government, president of Osai (an NGO involved in conservation) K. Kalidasan said that the status will go a long way in getting the required funds and undivided attention. Mr. Kalidasan pointed out that during 2007, eight to 12 tigers were found in the area. Organisations such as World Wide Fund for Nature, World Wildlife Fund and Wildlife Trust of India confirmed the tiger existence through various studies

Tiger Reserve status accorded for the 1.40 lakh hectares of Sathyamangalam with 90,000 hectares as core zone is a shot in the arm for conservation of rare flora and fauna besides combating the pressures of poaching as the Sathyamangalam valley is on the State border.

Welcoming the decision of the Union Government, president of Osai (an NGO involved in conservation) K. Kalidasan said that the status will go a long way in getting the required funds and undivided attention.

Mysore: A herd of elephants has been shifted from neardry Bandipur to a deeper Mulehole area inside the sanctuary where active water bodies and fodder still exist.

Most of the waterholes and tanks in the Bandipur camp have gone dry in the very first week of summer, forcing the Bandipur tiger sanctuary authorities to move the elephants to leafy terrains in the interiors.

With animals in the Bandipur National Park (BNP) facing hardship due to acute scarcity of water, triggered by a bad drought, the Forest department has started supplying water to the partially dried-up water bodies inside the BNP.

Wild animals, particularly elephant, tiger, deer and bison, are struggling to slake their thirst as there is water only in 15 of the 282 tanks/lakes inside the Bandipur National Park. Acute water shortage has forced several animals to migrate to the backwaters. But, even that region is facing water crisis.

Hundreds of fully grown and commercially important trees have been axed by thieves in the Dandeli-Anshi and Bandipur tiger reserves in Karnataka.

Sources indicated a nexus between the forest department officials and local politicians in the Kulgi range of the Dandeli-Anshi Tiger Reserve. In Bandipur, eyewitnesses pointed to the involvement of a forest watcher in the racket. According to sources, a forest guard stationed in the Kulgi beat, Kulgi range, (now promoted and posted as DRFO, Zamga section) had given a free hand to this mass plundering of fecund forests between September 2012 and December 2012).

Filling It Artificially Will Save Animals, Say Officials | A Wrong Move: Experts

Bangalore: The government’s proposal to artificially replenish water holes in national parks, sanctuaries and tiger reserves has drawn flak from wildlife experts. The proposal was floated last month due to drought-like condition and water crisis in forest areas. In a letter to Dipak Sarmah, the principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) and chief wildlife warden, Karnataka forest department, the experts said it’s disastrous to have water tankers enter wildlife reserves

Disease Claims 10 Cattle Two Months After Elephant’s Death On Bandipur Forest Fringes

Mysore: Anthrax scare has returned to haunt tiger reserves in the state after the death of 10 cattle heads on the fringes of Bandipur forest. Forest officials are perplexed as this comes just two months after anthrax claimed a 10-year-old tusker in Thalavadi range in Sathyamangalam forest bordering BRT tiger reserve in November last year.