Raimona National Park is located in extreme western part of

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It is spread across

Gossaigaon Gossaigaon is one of the developing town in the Bodoland region of Assam, India. This is a sub-divisional headquarter of Kokrajhar district. It shares its boundaries with the neighboring state West Bengal in the west and Dhubri district to the s ...

and Kokrajhar subdivisions of

Kokrajhar district Kokrajhar district is an administrative district in Bodoland Territorial Region of Assam. It is predominantly inhabited by the Boro tribe. The district has its headquarters located at Kokrajhar Town and occupies an area of . It has two civil ...

BTR BTR may refer to: Companies * BTR Aerospace Group * BTR plc, formerly BTR Industries, one of the predecessor companies of Invensys plc * British Thomson-Houston (former name BTR), a British engineering and heavy industrial company Media, music, ...

History

It was declared a

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 ...

on 5 June 2021 by the announcement of Assam's

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

Himanta Biswa Sarma Himanta Biswa Sarma (born 1 February 1969) is an Indian politician serving as the 15th and incumbent Chief Minister of Assam. A former member of the Indian National Congress political party. Sarma joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on 23 August ...

on the occasion of

World Environment Day World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated annually on 5 June and encourages awareness and action for the protection of the environment. It is supported by many non-governmental organizations, businesses, government entities, and represents the ...

at Gandhi Mandap,

Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...

. On 9 June 2021; it became as National Park through an Assam Gazette Notification no.FRW.02/2021/27 dtd. 8 June 2021. It is a part of a contiguous forest patch with an area of covering the northern part of the notified Ripu Reserve Forest (), which forms the westernmost buffer to Manas Tiger Reserve in the foothills of Eastern Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspot. The present Raimona National Park was originally recommended as Ripu-Chirang Wildlife Sanctuary being part of Ripu reserved forest and Chirang reserved forest being adjacent a part of it was also mooted to be within. Those were made owing to its significance for conservation of Asian elephants, gaur or Indian "bison" and golden langur, all of which have large populations in the area. It is also part of Chirang-Ripu Elephant Reserve.

Description

The boundary of Raimona National Park is marked by the

Sankosh River Sankosh (also Mo Chu, and Svarnakosha) is a river that rises in northern Bhutan and empties into the Brahmaputra in the state of Assam in India. In Bhutan, it is known as the Puna Tsang Chu below the confluences of several tributaries near the ...

on the west, along the inter-state boundary of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

and Assam from Indo-Bhutan border up to fire line Ride-6 southwards (BP30) and Saralbhanga River on the east, runs northwards till it touches the Indo-Bhutan international boundary on the north and remaining part of Ripu Reserve Forest on the south. The southern boundary runs eastwards along the fire line Ride-6 up to Pekua River where it runs at 90 degrees southwards till it meets the fire line Ride-3. The area is located along the Himalayan foothills and together with Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary 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 ...

and Buxa Tiger Reserve of West Bengal forms a fairly large trans-boundary conservation landscape of more than .

Biodiversity

Raimona National Park is famous for

golden langur Gee's golden langur (''Trachypithecus geei''), also known as simply the golden langur, is an Old World monkey found in a small region of Western Assam, India and in the neighboring foothills of the Black Mountains of Bhutan. Long considered sac ...

, an endemic species (with Bhutan) which has been named as the mascot of Bodoland region. It also has

Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus ''Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the no ...

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 ...

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 ...

, gaur, chital, four to five species of hornbills, more than 150 species of butterflies, 190 species of birds, 380 varieties of plants and orchids. It is already on the global map for being an important bird and biodiversity area.

Wildlife

Fauna

Being a moist deciduous and semi-evergreen forest, this National Park is rich in biodiversity. It has four non-human primates, slow loris, Assamese macaque,

Rhesus monkey The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...

and capped langur. Other noteworthy mammals found in this national park includes Chinese pangolin,

dhole or Asian wild dog The dhole (''Cuon alpinus''; ) is a Canidae, canid native to Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. Other English names for the species include Asian wild dog, Asiatic wild dog, Indian wild dog, whistling ...

, Himalayan black bear, crab-eating mongoose, jungle cat,

leopard cat The leopard cat (''Prionailurus bengalensis'') is a small wild cat native to continental South, Southeast, and East Asia. Since 2002 it has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List as it is widely distributed although threatened by hab ...

Asian golden cat The Asian golden cat (''Catopuma temminckii'') is a medium-sized wild cat native to the northeastern Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and China. It has been listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List since 2008, and is threatened by poach ...

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

, gaur, Himalayan serow, sambar, chital, hog deer, barking deer, crestless Himalayan porcupine and

hispid hare The hispid hare (''Caprolagus hispidus''), also called Assam rabbit and bristly rabbit, is a leporid native to South Asia, whose historic range extended along the southern foothills of the Himalayas. Today, its habitat is highly fragmented with an ...

Avifauna

Raimona forest harbours more than 260 bird species. Avifauna includes critically endangered white-bellied heron,

swamp francolin The swamp francolin (''Ortygornis gularis''), also called swamp partridge, is a francolin species native to the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India and Nepal. It is considered extinct in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. It is ...

, kaleej pheasant, grey peacock pheasant, Indian peafowl, Oriental darter, lesser adjutant,

collared falconet The collared falconet (''Microhierax caerulescens'') is a species of bird of prey in the family Falconidae. It is found in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia, ranging across Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Th ...

slender-billed vulture The slender-billed vulture (''Gyps tenuirostris'') is an Old World vulture species native to sub-Himalayan regions and Southeast Asia. It is Critically Endangered since 2002 as the population on the Indian subcontinent has declined rapidly. As ...

, white-backed vulture, besra,

black baza The black baza (''Aviceda leuphotes'') is a small bird of prey found in the forests of Northeast India, the eastern Himalayas, China and Southeast Asia. Many populations are migratory, including those in the Indian region, which winter in the sou ...

Jerdon's baza Jerdon's baza (''Aviceda jerdoni'') is a moderate sized brown hawk with a thin white-tipped black crest usually held erect. It is found in South-east Asia. It inhabits foothills in the terai and is rarer in evergreen forests and tea estates.Rasm ...

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

, Bengal florican, now perhaps extirpated,

ibisbill The ibisbill (''Ibidorhyncha struthersii'') is a bird related to the waders, but sufficiently distinctive to merit its own family Ibidorhynchidae. It is grey with a white belly, red legs and long down-curved bill, and a black face and black breas ...

, green imperial pigeon,

mountain imperial pigeon The mountain imperial pigeon (''Ducula badia''), also known as the maroon-backed imperial pigeon or Hodgson's imperial pigeon, is a species of bird in the pigeon and dove family with a wide range in southeastern Asia. Taxonomy The Malabar im ...

red-breasted parakeet The red-breasted parakeet (''Psittacula alexandri'') is among the more widespread species of the genus and is the species which has the most geographical variations. It is easily identified by the large red patch on its breast. An alternative nam ...

great pied hornbill The great hornbill (''Buceros bicornis''), also known as the concave-casqued hornbill, great Indian hornbill or great pied hornbill, is one of the larger members of the hornbill family. It occurs in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It ...

, occasional rufous-necked and grey hornbills, wreathed hornbill,

hill myna ''Gracula'' is a genus of mynas, tropical members of the starling family of birds found in southern Asia and introduced to Florida in the United States. Taxonomy The genus ''Gracula'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnae ...

and scaly thrush.

References

{{National Parks of India National parks in Assam Kokrajhar district