Manas Tiger Reserve
While Kaziranga is known for the Rhinoceros, Manas
National Park is famous for the Majestic Tigers. This park
is the only Project Tiger in Assam. The Manas Reserve,
located in the foothills of the Bhutan hills, far from human
habitation, is a world in itself.
The
Manas River flowing through the Park demarcates the border
between India and Bhutan. The Park has vast deciduous
forests where the dense cover often cuts out the light. Its
wet grasslands are the home of the rhino, water buffalo,
elephant and tiger. Manas is noted for its population of the
rare golden langur - found only in this part of the country.
They are often spotted in the tall trees. Other primates in
the Park include the capped langur, Assamese macaque, the
slow loris and the hoolock gibbon. These are rarely seen but
the whooping call of the hoolock gibbon can be heard
resounding through the forest. The Reserve is also home to
the attractive red panda but these are only seen
occasionally in the higher elevations.
Manas
has a very special biosphere, for it harbours twenty species
of birds and animals that are highly endangered and listed
in the IUCN Red Data Book. These include the hispid hare and
the pigmy hog. The lush forest canopy at Manshelters
colourful birds - the giant hornbills, both pied and gray
varieties, pheasants, jungle fowl and scarlet minivet being
among them. The water-birds along the rivers include
brahminy ducks, mergansers and a range of egrets, herons and
pelican Over 2840 sq. km. in area, Manas is, a fascinating
tiger reserve.
The
area of Manas has roughly 45% grassland and 55% tree land as
wildlife habitat. The river course may have about 100 sq.km.
of reparian forests of grass and primary succession of tree
cover, which is probably the most suitable water buffalo
habitat any where and providing by far the best habitat for
the tiger, where the concentration of the species is the
highest. Inter and inter specific relation of the prey and
predator in this area is extremely interesting and awaits
scientific study to understand population dynamics and other
evolutionary processes at work. In this area the ever
changing river course cause erosion and accretion at the
same time providing extraordinary dynamism to the
habitat/ecosystems sustaining very high productivity. The
rain fall in this area is very high about 450 to 500 cm and
the temperature is also very conducive to add to the
productivity.
General lnformation
Best time to visit :
Nov.-April
Accommodation :
Tourist Lodge and Forest Rest Houses.
Nearest Town :
Barpeta Road (40 km)
How
to get there :
Rail-Barpeta
Road (40 km) Air-Guwahati (186 km)
