Pench Tiger Reserve | Safari No. 3 | Core Zone : Turia Gate

Pench Tiger Reserve | Safari No. 2 | Core Zone : Turia Gate @crazyaboutlife0411

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Pench Tiger Reserve or Pench National Park is a tiger reserve in India straddling across Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. On the Madhya Pradesh side, it encompasses a core area of 411.33 km2 (158.82 sq mi), with a buffer of 768.3 km2 (296.6 sq mi), making for a total protected area of 1,179.63 km2 (455.46 sq mi).[1] On the Maharashtra side, the Pench Tiger Reserve has a core habitat area of 257.3 km2 (99.3 sq mi) along with a buffer zone of 483.96 km2 (186.86 sq mi) making total protected area of 741.2 km2 (286.2 sq mi).

Pench Sanctuary was created in September 1977, with an initial area of 449.39 km². The Pench National Park, recently renamed as Indira Priyadarshini Pench National Park, was created in 1983, carved out of the Sanctuary. The Tiger Reserve, 19th in the series, was formed under the Project Tiger scheme in November 1992.

Fauna

Leopard at Pench (MP)

Owl in Pench National Park

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Zoogeographically, the Reserve falls in Oriental region. The carnivore fauna is represented by the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), Indian leopard (Panthera pardus), dhole (Cuon alpinus), jungle cat (Felis chaus), and small Indian civet (Viverricula indica). Wolves (Canis lupus pallipes) occur on the fringes and outside the Reserve limits. Striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), golden jackal (Canis aureus), and Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) make up the rest of the carnivore fauna of the Reserve. Chital (Axis axis), sambar (Cervus unicolor), gaur (Bos gaurus), nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), wild pig (Sus scrofa), Indian muntjac (Muntiacus muntjac) and chowsingha (Tetraceros quadricornis), are the wild ungulate species found in the study area. Chital, sambar, nilgai and wild pigs are found all over the Tiger Reserve. With the distribution of water governing their movement patterns to a great extent, gaur migrate down from the hills during the dry season and occupy the forests along the Pench River and other sources of water, and migrate back to the hill forests during the monsoon. Nilgai are found mostly in a few open areas, along forest roads, scrub jungles and fringe areas of the Reserve. Chowsingha are more localized to the greatly undulating areas of the Reserve. Barking deer are seen infrequently in moist riverine stretches. Chinkara (Gazella bennetti) are infrequently seen on the open areas bordering and outside the Buffer Zone of the Reserve (e.g. Turia, Telia, and Dudhgaon).

The common northern plains gray langur (Semnopithecus entellus) and rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) represent the primate fauna of the area. The Indian porcupine (Hystrix indica), two species of mongoose viz. Indian grey mongoose (Urva edwardsii) and ruddy mongoose (Urva smithii), and Indian hare (Lepus nigricollis) also occur in this Tiger Reserve.

Famous tigers

Patdev female of Pench Tiger Reserve
One of the tigresses in the reserve, Badi Mada or Barimada ('Big Mother'), became well known for giving birth to 29 cubs over 17 years.[7]

Collarwali, a daughter of Badi Mada, starred with her mother in the BBC Wildlife Special Tiger: Spy in the Jungle, which popularised the reserve.[8][9] She became one of India's best known tigers, giving birth to 26 cubs in 7 litters as of April 2017[7] and 29 cubs in 8 litters by her death in January 2022 at the age of 16.[8] Born in 2005 and initially dubbed T-15, she acquired the name Collarwali ('The One With a Collar') after being the first tigress in the park fitted with a radio collar, in 2008. She was unusually large for a female and because she was comparatively friendly, was the most frequently seen tiger in the park. In 2010 she gave birth to an unusually large litter, 5 cubs.[8] Of Collarwali's cubs, records indicate 14 of the 18 born by 2013[9] and 17 of the 22 from her first 6 litters survived to adulthood.[7] They have dispersed to other parts of Pench and some may have crossed over to other tiger reserves such as Kanha National Park. For example in December 2010,male T-39, born in her second litter in October 2008, travelled more than 50 km to near the boundary of the reserve.[10] She died in January 2022 and was cremated by a local tribal leader.[11][12]
Swastik, a huge male tiger of Pench (MP).

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