The Jigme Dorji National Park (JDNP), named after the late
Jigme Dorji Wangchuck
Jigme Dorji Wangchuck ( dz, འབྲུག་རྒྱལ་པོ་ འཇིགས་མེད་རྡོ་རྗེ་དབང་ཕྱུག་མཆོག་, ; 2 May 1928 – 21 July 1972) was the 3rd Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan.
He began ...
, is the second-largest
National Park
A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
of
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
. It occupies almost the entire
Gasa District
Gasa District or Gasa Dzongkhag ( Dzongkha: མགར་ས་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Mgar-sa rdzong-khag'') is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. The capital of Gasa District is Gasa Dzong near Gasa. It is loc ...
, as well as the northern areas of
Thimphu District
Thimphu District (Dzongkha: ཐིམ་ཕུ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Thim-phu rdzong-khag'') is a dzongkhag (district) of Bhutan. Thimphu is also the capital of Bhutan and the largest city in the whole kingdom.
Languages
The ...
,
Paro District
Paro District (Dzongkha: སྤ་རོ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Spa-ro rdzong-khag'') is a district (''dzongkhag''), valley, river and town (population 20,000) in Bhutan. It is one of the most historic valleys in Bhutan. Both tra ...
,
Punakha
Punakha ( dz, སྤུ་ན་ཁ་) is the administrative centre of Punakha dzongkhag, one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Punakha was the capital of Bhutan and the seat of government until 1955, when the capital was moved to Thimphu. It is abo ...
, and
Wangdue Phodrang District
Wangdue Phodrang District ( Dzongkha: དབང་འདུས་ཕོ་བྲང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Dbang-'dus Pho-brang rdzong-khag''; previously spelled "Wangdi Phodrang") is a dzongkhag (district) of central Bhutan. This ...
s. It was established in 1974 and stretches over an area of 4316 km², thereby spanning all three climate zones of Bhutan, ranging in elevation from 1400 to over 7000 meters. About 6,500 people in 1,000 households live within the park, from
subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
and animal husbandry. It is listed as a tentative site in Bhutan's Tentative List for UNESCO inclusion.
[
]
Flora and fauna
The park provides sanctuary for 37 known species of mammals including several endangered, threatened or vulnerable species, such as the Bhutan takin
The Bhutan Takin (''Budorcas taxicolor whitei'') is a vulnerable subspecies of Takin native to Bhutan, North Eastern India, Western part of China, and Tibet. The main threats to the Bhutan Takin are hunting and habitat loss.
Range, behavio ...
, snow leopard
The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a Felidae, felid in the genus ''Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia, Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable species, Vulnerable on the IUCN Red ...
, clouded leopard
The clouded leopard (''Neofelis nebulosa''), also called the mainland clouded leopard, is a wild cat inhabiting dense forests from the foothills of the Himalayas through mainland Southeast Asia into South China. In the early 19th century, a cl ...
, Bengal tiger
The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna.
The tiger is estimated to have been present in ...
, bharal
The bharal (''Pseudois nayaur''), also called the blue sheep, is a caprine native to the high Himalayas. It is the only member of the genus ''Pseudois.'' It occurs in India, Bhutan, China (in Gansu, Ningxia, Sichuan, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia), ...
or Himalayan blue sheep, black musk deer, Himalayan black bear
The Himalayan black bear (''Ursus thibetanus laniger'') is a subspecies of the Asian black bear found in the Himalayas of India, Bhutan, Nepal, China, and Pakistan.
Description
It is distinguished from '' U. t. thibetanus'' by its longer, thicke ...
, red panda
The red panda (''Ailurus fulgens''), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzzle ...
, Ussuri dhole
The Ussuri dholeHeptner, V. G. & Naumov, N. P. (1998). Mammals of the Soviet Union Vol. II Part 1a, SIRENIA AND CARNIVORA (Sea cows; Wolves and Bears)', Science Publishers, Inc. USA., pp. 566–86, (''Cuon alpinus alpinus''), also known as the I ...
, and spotted linsang
The spotted linsang (''Prionodon pardicolor'') is a linsang, a tree-dwelling carnivorous mammal, native to much of Southeast Asia. It is widely, though usually sparsely, recorded, and listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.
Characteristic ...
. It is also home to the Indian leopard
The Indian leopard (''Panthera pardus fusca'') is a leopard subspecies widely distributed on the Indian subcontinent. The species ''Panthera pardus'' is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because populations have declined following habi ...
, Himalayan serow
The Himalayan serow (''Capricornis sumatraensis thar''), also known as the thar ( , ), is a subspecies of the mainland serow native to the Himalayas. It was previously considered its own species, as ''Capricornis thar''. It is the official state ...
, sambar, barking deer
Barking may refer to:
Places
* Barking, London, a town in East London, England
** London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, a local government district covering the town of Barking
** Municipal Borough of Barking, a historical local government dist ...
, Himalayan goral
The Himalayan goral (''Naemorhedus goral'') or the gray goral, is a bovid species native to the Himalayas. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List because the population is thought to be declining significantly due to habitat loss an ...
, Himalayan marmot
The Himalayan marmot (''Marmota himalayana'') is a marmot species that inhabits alpine grasslands throughout the Himalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau. It is IUCN Red Listed as Least Concern because of its wide range and possibly large population. ...
, Himalayan pika
The Himalayan pika (''Ochotona himalayana'') is a species of small mammal in the pika family (''Ochotonidae''). It is found at high altitudes in remote areas of Ladakh, Uttarakhand and possibly also in Nepal &Tibet. The IUCN has listed this spe ...
, and more than 300 species of birds. It is also the only park in Bhutan where the national animal (takin), flower (blue poppy), bird (raven) and tree (cypress) exist together.
Cultural sites
Jigme Dorji also contains sites of cultural and economic significance. Mount Jomolhari
Jomolhari or Chomolhari (; ) sometimes known as "the bride of Kangchenjunga”, is a mountain in the Himalayas, straddling the border between Yadong County of Tibet, China and the Paro district of Bhutan. The north face rises over above the ba ...
and Mount Jitchu Drake
Jichu Drake (pronounced drah kay) is a mountain in Bhutan among the Himalayas, and a companion peak to Mount Jomolhari. Its height is given variously as 6714m, 6789m, 6797m, 6970m or 6989m by various sources. Jitchu Drake has a double summit, w ...
are worshipped as homes of the local deity. The fortresses of Lingshi Dzong and Gasa Dzong
Gasa Dzong or Gasa Tashi Tongmön Dzong near Gasa is the administrative center of Gasa Dzongkhag (district) in the northwestern region of Bhutan. The Dzong was built in the 17th century by Tenzin Drukdra the second Druk Desi over the site of a med ...
are sites of historical importance. The rivers Mo Chhu
Mo Chhu is a major river in Bhutan. The word "Chhu" means "river" or "water" in Dzongkha, the official national language in Bhutan. The river rises in Gasa Dzongkhag (district) near the border between Bhutan and Tibet. From there, the Mo Chhu fl ...
, Wangdi Chhu and Pa Chhu have their sources in the glacial lakes located in the park.
Glaciers
Jigme Dorji National Park covers most of northern Gasa District
Gasa District or Gasa Dzongkhag ( Dzongkha: མགར་ས་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Mgar-sa rdzong-khag'') is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. The capital of Gasa District is Gasa Dzong near Gasa. It is loc ...
, including the bulk of Lunana and Laya Gewog
Laya Gewog is a gewog (village block) of Gasa District, Bhutan. The capital of gewog is the town Laya.
The gewog lies entirely within Jigme Dorji National Park and contains several of Bhutan's glaciers.
As well as the national language, Dz ...
s. These gewogs are the site of some of the most notable and precarious glaciers of Bhutan The glaciers of Bhutan, which covers about 3 percent of the total surface area, are responsible for feeding all rivers of Bhutan except the Amochu and Nyere Amachu.
Not much historical information is available on these glacial systems; the first mo ...
. These glaciers have thawed significantly over the course of recorded history, causing lethal and destructive glacial lake outburst flood
A glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) is a type of outburst flood caused by the failure of a dam containing a glacial lake. An event similar to a GLOF, where a body of water contained by a glacier melts or overflows the glacier, is called a jö ...
s. Chief among the glaciers and glacial lakes within the park are Thorthormi, Luggye, and Teri Kang. As the seasons allow, temporary camps of laborers work within the park to reduce water levels to assuage the threat of flooding downstream.[
]
See also
* List of protected areas of Bhutan
The protected areas of Bhutan are its national parks, nature preserves, and wildlife sanctuaries. Most of these protected areas were first set aside in the 1960s, originally covering most of the northern and southern regions of Bhutan. Today, prot ...
* Glaciers of Bhutan The glaciers of Bhutan, which covers about 3 percent of the total surface area, are responsible for feeding all rivers of Bhutan except the Amochu and Nyere Amachu.
Not much historical information is available on these glacial systems; the first mo ...
References
External links
Bengal tiger versus Himalayan black bear
Jigme Dorji National Park: Where People, Tiger and Snow Leopard Coexist
{{authority control
National parks of Bhutan
Protected areas of Bhutan
Eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests
Gasa District
Paro District
Punakha District
Thimphu District
Protected areas established in 1974
1974 establishments in Bhutan
Important Bird Areas of Bhutan