Wild Elephants in M.P.

A toatal number of 5 wild elephants entered the state through Chhattisgarh from Jharkhand.
Jharkhand has a very small population of wild elephants in Palamu National Park but due to loss of habitat these wild elephants are forced to migrate to Chhattisgarh for food.
All 5 are captured in Sidhi district by the Team led by Sh Mridul Pathak Field Director Bandhavgarh National Park with the field assistance provided by Mr Vincent Rahim FD, Sanjay Tiger Reserve and DFO Sidhi.

Tigers seen in Bandhavgarh in 2017-18 season

Surprise surprise. Total 70 different tigers were seen in this season in Tourisn zone of Bandhavgarh.

Golden Jubillee Celebration

On Golden Jubilee celebration of bandhavgarh day I heard somebody saying that in mid 70's the only policy they had was leave it to nature.
The comment was in a sarcastic manner. I thought to reply then and there but that wouldn't have been an appropiate time to reply.
So here is my answer for your knowledge.
By 1970's Madhya Pradesh had only 3 National Parks. Kanha Shivpuri and Bandhavgarh.
In late 1800 hundred the Kanha forest got noticed by British Govt and they found it very useful for supplying timber for railway sleepers. Chiraidongri and Balaghat were two major ports for transporting timber from Kanha.
By the time in 1955 when Kanha was declared as National Park the forest was already on an average more than 100 yrs old and many trees which were not mature enough for railway sleepers that time were already 400 yrs or more old.
Shivpuri was a shrubland. Although heavy exploitation of Acacia catechu trees thinned the whole forest of that area and National Park was not an exception. So at the time of declaration of Madhav National Park in 1958 there was literally no Forest.
In 1982 when Late Sh M.N.Buch did the survey of Shivpuri for Acacia catechu trees ,because of some complaints against Kattha Mill in Shivpuri , there were hardly few trees left.
Then Bandhavgarh. Declared in 1968. At that time Bandhavgarh did not had any good forest left except few Sal trees in Hardia area but they were not also not big enough to be used as Timber. Use of Sal trees as Balli is shear wastage of timber wood.
Till 1968 the villages were using the forest as per their need without any control on them. Maharaja himself was selling bamboo to Amlai Paper mill who were doing clear felling in the area.
When you have a policy of no plantation in National park then what option you have except to leave it to the nature!!!
A sal forest area of Bandhavgarh became Mixed Forest due to this policy only.
Last month I went on each and every tourism road of Tala and Magadhi zone to look for 70 yrs old trees.
I found very few.
According to sh J J Dutta, who signed the Bandhavgarh treaty between Govt of M.P. and Maharaja of Rewa in 1968 told me that till 1968 there use to be cattle camps around Chakradhara, Rajbehra, Sehra, Dadra, Bathan, Aamanalah, Sukhi Patiya and Hardia area.
One can go to these places today to find out that average age of the forest of this area is around 40 years or so.
So i hope I made my point that in that situation that was the best policy to adopt.

B2 aka Sundar.

B2 may not be as popular as Sita or Charger or Banka were. Only because these tigers had the benefit of early film making on wild tigers in the country. B2 came in after Sita and Charger. He was not as aggressive as Charger but he was as docile and jeep friendly as Sita was but at the same time he learnt the tricks of the trade very early in his life to maintain the distance from the crowd. In late 1990's B2 along with his siblings B1 and B3 dominated the Tala Range. 
This was the time when Charger was getting old. He had catract. He was losing hld on his territory. In his last few years of his life he did not faced any challange from any other intruder. We saw him surviving on scraps.
This made things much easier for B2 and his siblings to get the control of the area.
They all formed their territories in Chargers land even when the dominant male was still alive but surviving in very poor condition.
Charger spent last few months of his life in a man made pan.
A tiger who could not see properly was found in a ditch near village Mahaman, starving , unable to move so initially a temporary pan was erected then and there for him.
Once Charger gone in to a pan B2 got a chance to flex his muscles without getting any challange from any other male.
This young cub who was born in Tala range and useto to the tourist jeeps startedmoving in Chakradhara meadow to form his territory.
He use to walk parallal to tourist jeeps. This made him very popular amongst the tourists because in those days Tala was the only zone in Bandhavgarh and whole park and all the roads were open for tourism.
People strted coming year after year to look for B2. Like Charger and Sita, B2 aka Sundar too became a symbol for Bandhavgarh.
In those days noone asked to look for any other Tiger except B2.
Every tourist wante to posses a photograph of B2.
B2s popularity in the tiger world can be judged by this too that a complete book was written on him (Tiger Jungle By Iain Green ) .
Once he became the dominant male he had never faced any other male or allowed any intruder to steal any part of his territory.

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