Other States - Uttaranchal   

Rajaji Park to be promoted as safari destination

DEHRA DUN: The Uttarakhand Government seems all set to promote the proposed Rajaji National Park nestled between Dehra Dun and the religious hotspots of Hardwar and Rishikesh as a major safari destination in the Shivaliks.

“The Park management hopes to introduce safaris, a nature shop and awareness programmes for school children as part of the silver jubilee celebrations later this year. All this will be supplemented by an extensive nature awareness programme for people living on the periphery,” Srikant Chandola, Chief Wildlife Warden said.

The Park has about 470 Asian elephants, 26 tigers and a good number of cobras besides about 23 species of mammals and 315 species of birds. The elephant population has the sex ratio of one male to every three females.

The Park has been the theatre of an intense man-animal conflict with over 25 human beings, mostly women who went to the forests to collect fuel and fodder, getting trampled by elephants and an equal number of pachyderms being electrocuted by the farmers as they entered villages and destroyed crops and houses over the past decade. The elephants have killed people in the villages around Chidderwala and Raiwala also.

The elephants have been hit by the trains also with 27 of them getting killed by speeding trains between 1987 and 2000.

This menace has been controlled and no more elephants got killed after the railways agreed to reduce the speeds in this segment and instances of engine drivers stopping trains to allow the animals to pass safely heralds a new chapter in wildlife awareness, Mr Chandola said.

Wildlife overbridges have also been planned along the traditional elephant corridors. Once in place, these overbridges will help the wildlife, especially elephants reclaim their lost habitat, Mr Chandola said.

Shilpa Negi, a social activist felt that the Park authorities would solve the woes of the farmers on the periphery by devising ways to stop crop destroying animals like elephants, neelgai and wild boar from entering the villages.

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Rajaji Park to be promoted as safari destination

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