The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is a protected area in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

that stretches mainly across the

Lakhimpur Kheri Lakhimpur Kheri district is the largest district in Uttar Pradesh, India, on the border with Nepal. Its administrative capital is the city of Lakhimpur. Lakhimpur Kheri district is a part of Lucknow division, with a total area of . The nation ...

and

Bahraich district Bahraich district is one of the districts of Uttar Pradesh state of India, and Bahraich town is the district headquarters. Bahraich District is a part of Devipatan Division. History According to some other historians in the middle age this pl ...

s and comprises the

Dudhwa National Park The Dudhwa National Park is a national park in the Terai belt of marshy grasslands in northern Uttar Pradesh, India. It stretches over an area of , with a buffer zone of . It is part of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in the Kheri and Lakhimpur distri ...

Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary The Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary is a part of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve near Mailani in Uttar Pradesh, India. It covers an area of and was founded in 1972. It is 13 km away from Bhira town in Lakhimpur Kheri District. The sanctuary is covered w ...

and

Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary The Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area in the Upper Gangetic plain, near Bahraich city in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh, India and covers an area of in the Terai of the Bahraich district. In 1987, it was brought under the ...

. It covers an area of and includes three large forest fragments amidst the matrix dominated by agriculture. It shares the north-eastern boundary with

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

, which is defined to a large extent by the Mohana River. The area is a vast alluvial floodplain traversed by numerous rivers and streams flowing in south-easterly direction. It ranges in altitude from .Mathur, P. K. and N. Midha (2008)
''Mapping of National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve''
. WII – NNRMS - MoEF Project, Final Technical Report. Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.

History

In 1987, the Dudhwa National Park and the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary were brought under the purview of the ‘

Project Tiger Project Tiger is a tiger conservation programme launched in April 1973 by the Government of India during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's tenure. The project aims at ensuring a viable population of the Bengal tiger in its natural habitats, protect ...

’ as Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. The Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary was added in the year 2000. It is one of India's 53

Tiger Reserves The tiger reserves of India were set up in 1973 and are governed by Project Tiger, which is administrated by the National Tiger Conservation Authority. Until 2018, 50 protected areas have been designated tiger reserves. In 2022, 53rd tiger reserve ...

Fauna

The protected area is home for

tigers The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on un ...

leopards 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 ...

Asiatic black bear The Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), also known as the Asiatic black bear, moon bear and white-chested bear, is a medium-sized bear species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an or ...

sloth bear The sloth bear (''Melursus ursinus'') is a myrmecophagous bear species native to the Indian subcontinent. It feeds on fruits, ants and termites. It is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, mainly because of habitat loss and degradation. ...

Swamp deer The barasingha (''Rucervus duvaucelii''), also known as the swamp deer, is a deer species distributed in the Indian subcontinent. Populations in northern and central India are fragmented, and two isolated populations occur in southwestern Nepal. ...

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...

, elephants,

cheetal The chital or cheetal (''Axis axis''; ), also known as the spotted deer, chital deer, and axis deer, is a deer species native to the Indian subcontinent. It was first described and given a binomial name by German naturalist Johann Christian ...

hog deer ''Axis'' is a genus of deer occurring in South and Southeast Asia. As presently defined by most authorities, four species are placed in the genus. Three of the four species are called hog deer. The genus name is a word mentioned in Pliny the Eld ...

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 ...

, sambar,

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

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 ...

Tigers

In 2006, the tiger population of the Dudhwa-Kheri- Pilibhit conservation complex was estimated as comprising 80–110 tigers. Until 2010, the population had increased to an estimated 106–118 tigers and was considered stable.

Jhala Jhala (Hindi: झाला, ) is a term in Hindustani classical music which denotes the fast-paced conclusions of classical compositions or raga A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisatio ...

, Y. V., Qureshi, Q., Sinha, P. R. (eds.) (2011)
''Status of tigers, co-predators and prey in India, 2010.''
National Tiger Conservation Authority, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. TR 2011/003 pp-302

The reintroduced tiger

In July 1976,

Billy Arjan Singh Kunwar "Billy" Arjan Singh (15 August 1917 – 1 January 2010) was an Indian hunter turned conservationist and author. He was the first who tried to reintroduce tigers and leopards from captivity into the wild.Thapar, V. (2010) ''Obituary: ...

acquired a tiger cub named ''Tara'' from

Twycross Zoo Twycross Zoo is a medium to large zoo near Norton Juxta Twycross, Leicestershire. The zoo has the largest collection of monkeys and apes in the Western World, and in 2006 re-launched itself as "Twycross Zoo – The World Primate Centre". T ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, hand reared her and later

reintroduced Species reintroduction is the deliberate release of a species into the wild, from captivity or other areas where the organism is capable of survival. The goal of species reintroduction is to establish a healthy, genetically diverse, self-sustainin ...

her to the wild in the Dudhwa National Park with the permission of India's then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In the 1990s, some tigers from the protected area were observed to have the typical appearance of

Siberian tiger The Siberian tiger or Amur tiger is a population of the tiger subspecies '' Panthera tigris tigris'' native to the Russian Far East, Northeast China and possibly North Korea. It once ranged throughout the Korean Peninsula, but currently inh ...

s, namely a large head, pale fur, white complexion, and wide stripes, and were suspected to be Bengal-Siberian tiger hybrids. Billy Arjan Singh sent hair samples of tigers from the national park to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

where the samples were analysed using mitochondrial sequence analysis. Results revealed that the tigers in question had a Bengal tiger mitochondrial haplotype indicating that their mother was a Bengal tiger. Skin, hair and blood samples from 71 tigers collected in various Indian zoos, in the National Museum in Kolkata and including two samples from Dudhwa National Park were prepared for microsatellite analysis that revealed that two tigers had

allele An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution. ::"The chro ...

s in two loci contributed by Bengal and Siberian tiger subspecies. However, samples of two hybrid specimens constituted too small a sample base to conclusively assume that ''Tara'' was the source of the Siberian tiger genes.Menon, S. (1997)
''Tainted Royalty''
. India Today.

Visitor information

Dudhwa National Park Visitors Entrance and Service Centre is at: . In 2019, it was announced that a visitors centre built at the Tiger Reserve would inform tourists about Tharu heritage and sell local products. Arti Rana is one of the coordinators and she is of Tharu heritage.

References

External links

The Hindu
{{Lucknow division topics Tiger reserves in Uttar Pradesh Lakhimpur Kheri district 1987 establishments in Uttar Pradesh Protected areas established in 1987