Sunday, January 11, 2015

Rise and Fall of Bandhavgarh 7

In last three years time what changed Bandhavgarh most is the free hand given to Labour to do what they feel best.
This relaxed attitude of forest department employees did not do any good for wildlife of any sort.
Tiger is always a major attraction for Tourists but all other small things makes this place more interesting. Start from the beginning Tourists were allowed to visit some of the caves in the park. These caves had lots of wildlife (Bats, spider, Lizards). Tourists were always interested in these small things. 
Badi Gufa, Astbal and Kutchehary were the most important caves around Sheshshaiyya. 
At one time Tomb Bats were found in abundance at Kutchehary and Astbal and Great Eastern Horse Shoe Bats in Badi Gufa.
Now we see them none at any of these places. 
Badi Gufa was turned in to a store where labour started parking their bicycle and keeping all the road maintenance material disturbed the bats.
Here a motorcycle is parked in Kutchehary.

I hope people remember the days when Gohni gate was put at it's place only for one reason - to keep villagers at bay from park area. 
Villagers has to go to their farming land after crossing the Gohni gate controlled by park management. Tourists were allowed to visit those fields in search of yello wattled lapwing, White Eyed Buzzard, Monitor Lizard, Porcupine, Indian Fox, Indian Jackal, many species of Pipits and Larks and Chinkara. Later things changed bit by bit and villagers were invited to farm their land. Few years back one of the Field Director saw this and decided to have C.P.T. instead of Chain Link fence. This was a very clever move. But present management in the park completely defeated or say wipedout all those efforts of previous Directors and allowed them to run Tea shop at right at the edge of core area. This created lots of disturbance to wildlife. Below in the picture is Tea shops at Baghnaka camp in Magadhi zone.



 It's not only in Magadhi zone they have allowed this disturbance in Khitauli zone also.

  

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