Royal Manas National Park is

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 ...

's oldest

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 ...

, and the Royal government considers it the "conservation showpiece of the Kingdom" and a "genetic depository" for valuable plants. It has an area of and covers eastern

Sarpang District Sarpang District (Dzongkha: གསར་སྤང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Gsar-spang rdzong-khag''; also known as "Geylegphug") is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. Sarpang covers a total area of 1,946 sq km and ...

, the western half of

Zhemgang District Zhemgang District (Dzongkha: གཞམས་སྒང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie transliteration: ''Gzhams-sgang rdzong-khag''; previously "Shemgang"), is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. It is bordered by Sarpang, Tr ...

, and western

Pemagatshel District Pemagatshel is one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Language Native speak Tshangla (Sharchopkha), an East Bodish language that is the ''lingua franca'' of eastern Bhutan. Population Pemagatshel district, as of 2005, had a population of 13,864 ...

. It is connected via "biological corridors" to

Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary The Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary is the second-smallest national park in Bhutan, covering in western Sarpang District and southeastern Dagana District along the border with West Bengal. It is connected to Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park and ...

Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park (formerly Black Mountains National Park) covers an area of in central Bhutan. It protects a large area of the Black Mountains, a sub−range of the Himalayan Range System. The park occupies most of the Tro ...

Phrumsengla National Park Phrumsengla National Park (Dzongkha: ཕུརམ་སེང་ལ་རྒྱལ་ཡོངས་གླིང་ག), formerly Thrumshingla National Park, in central Bhutan covers just over across four districts of Bhutan, districts, but pr ...

, and Jomotsangkha Wildlife Sanctuary. Royal Manas also directly abuts the

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

Manas National Park Manas may refer to: Philosophy and mythology *Manas, the Pali and Sanskrit term for "mind"; see **Manas (early Buddhism) **Manas-vijnana, one of the eight consciousnesses taught in Yogacara Buddhism *''Ramcharitmanas'', a retelling of the Ramayan ...

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, to the south. It is listed as a tentative site in Bhutan's Tentative List for UNESCO inclusion. Entry is prohibited to the public.

History

Royal Manas was one of the earliest focuses of the Bhutan Trust Fund in the early 1990s, receiving infrastructure development and baseline biological and socio-economic assessments. Bhutan's first park management plan was prepared for Royal Manas, and guided management of other parks.

Natural history

Flora

Habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s in Royal Manas National Park range from lowland tropical forests to permanent ice fields.

Ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

s in the park include

Eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests The Eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests is a temperate broadleaf forest ecoregion found in the middle elevations of the eastern Himalayas, including parts of Nepal, India, and Bhutan. These forests have an outstanding richness of wildlife. Settin ...

and

Himalayan subtropical pine forests The Himalayan subtropical pine forests are a large subtropical coniferous forest ecoregion covering portions of Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Geography This huge pine forest stretches for 3000 km across the lower elevations of the gre ...

. Royal Manas also produces several plant species used in food, commerce, medicine, and religious rituals. About 5,000 people live in remote, isolated villages within the park.

Fauna

Royal Manas National Park is home to

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 ...

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...

gaur The gaur (''Bos gaurus''; ), also known as the Indian bison, is a bovine native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986. The global population was estimated at a maximum of 21,000 m ...

(''Bos gaurus''), as well as rarer

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 ...

(''Presbytis geei''),

pygmy hog The pygmy hog (''Porcula salvania'') is the rarest species of pig in the world today, and is the only species in the genus ''Porcula''. It is also the smallest species of pig in the world, with its piglets being small enough to fit in one's pock ...

(''Sus salvanius''),

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 ...

(''Caprolagus hispidus''), and

Ganges river dolphin The Ganges river dolphin (''Platanista gangetica'') is a species of toothed whale classified in the family Platanistidae. It lives in the Ganges and related rivers of South Asia, namely in the countries of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. It is rel ...

(''Platanista''). It is also the only Bhutanese park inhabited by the

one-horned rhinoceros ''Rhinoceros'' is a genus comprising one-horned rhinoceroses. This scientific name was proposed by Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The genus contains two species, the Indian rhinoceros (''Rhinoceros unicornis'') and the Javan rhinocer ...

(''Rhinoceros unicornis'') and

wild water buffalo The wild water buffalo (''Bubalus arnee''), also called Asian buffalo, Asiatic buffalo and wild buffalo, is a large bovine native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It has been listed as ''Endangered'' in the IUCN Red List since 198 ...

(''Bubalus arnee''). Hundreds of species of birds—including four species of

hornbill Hornbills (Bucerotidae) are a family (biology), family of bird found in tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Melanesia. They are characterized by a long, down-curved bill which is frequently brightly coloured and sometimes has a Casque (an ...

s: rufous-necked, wreathed,

pied A piebald or pied animal is one that has a pattern of unpigmented spots (white) on a pigmented background of hair, feathers or scales. Thus a piebald black and white dog is a black dog with white spots. The animal's skin under the white backgro ...

and great Indian—also live in the vast park. The Manas River and its tributaries are home to three species of rare migratory game fish called

mahseer Mahseer is the common name used for the genera ''Tor'', ''Neolissochilus'', '' Naziritor'' and '' Parator'' in the family Cyprinidae (carps). The name is, however, more often restricted to members of the genus ''Tor''.Sen TK, Jayaram KC, 1982. Th ...

: the deep-bodied mahseer (''

Tor tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...

''), golden mahseer (''

Tor putitora ''Tor putitora'', the Putitor mahseer, Himalayan mahseer, or golden mahseer, is an endangered species of cyprinid fish that is found in rapid streams, riverine pools, and lakes in the Himalayan region. Its native range is within the basins of th ...

''), and chocolate mahseer or Katle ('' Acrossocheilus hexangonolepis'').

References

{{authority control National parks of Bhutan Protected areas of Bhutan Eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests Himalayan subtropical pine forests Pemagatshel District Sarpang District Zhemgang District Protected areas established in 1966 Important Bird Areas of Bhutan

History

Natural history

Flora

Fauna

See also

References