Dudhwa National Park

¤ Dudhwa National Park - The Largest and Thickest Forests Reserve

As the morning sun shines over the 50 feet tall Sal trees, dragonflies stretch out their wings by the gentle warmth of the golden sun. Sitting calmly on the dew- drenched leaves, they bask in the fresh warmth to recharge themselves for the day’s flight. Somewhere in the distance a koyal welcomes the morning with it's musical ode. Very little of the sun is able to cut through the thickness of the jungle. But what reaches the ground definitely explodes into a majestic display of light and shadow on the canvas of dry leaves.
Besides massive grassland and swamps, the Park boasts of one of the finest qualities of Sal (Shorea robusta) forests in India. Some of these trees are more than 150 years old and over 70 feet tall. But when the area was first notified as a Wildlife Sanctuary in 1965, and later as a National Park in 1977, it faced intense opposition from foresters, game lovers and local inhabitants.


¤ Converted Into National Park

Nobody wanted to lose this precious piece of land that was a life-support system for the locals. It was Billy Arjun Singh who stepped in to see Dudhwa through its fate. Committed to the point of being obsessive, this man stood firmly in favour of the jungle and convinced the erstwhile Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to notify the forest as a National Park.

This was a turning point in the history of Dudhwa National Park. Till then, the forest was a safe haven for both poachers and timber smugglers. Soon strict measures were taken to save the forest. In 1976, the park boasted of a population of 50 tigers, 41 elephants and 76 bears apart from five species of deer, more than 400 species of birds, a few crocodiles, and some other species of mammals and reptiles. officials claim that today the tiger population in Dudhwa has touched 70. However, the local NGOs believe that the number of tigers in Dudhwa doesn’t cross 20.


¤ Main Wildlife Attractions

Barasingha
Dudhwa National Park holidays will take you to your most thrilling holiday vacations where one rendezvous the barasingha, or the swamp deer, which can be seen in herds of more than a 100. India is the only country where this species of deer is found. According to a crude estimate, only 4,000 odd barasinghas have survived on the planet today, out of which more than 2,000 are found in Dudhwa.

Smaller than the sambar, the barasinghas have 12 antlers that can collectively measure more than 100cm in height. A full-grown stag can weigh as much as 180kg and measure 135cm at shoulder height. The coat is slightly woolly, dark brown to pale yellow, adapted perfectly to camouflage the herd in the tall elephant grasses of the region.

With the onset of winter, there is plenty of food to eat and warm sun for the deer to bask in. It is the right time for the females to conceive and for the males to form harems. This is the season when the swamps of Dudhwa echo with the frequent wallowing of rutting stags. There is hardly a serious conflict between the adult males. Mock fights entail stiff postures and shrill calls rather than the actual locking of the horns. But the most intriguing behaviour of the rutting male swamp deer is to decorate its antlers with grass – probably a ritual before going in for a mass courting.

Time For The New Borns
The onset of spring brings back harmony. The females have conceived and now the herd should be prepared to welcome the newborn fawns. There is no point wearing domineering antlers now. With winter gone, it’s time to shed the woolly coats. During this point of time in the year, one can hardly see any fights amongst the males. Suddenly everyone in the herd is busy grazing, preparing themselves for the harsh summer ahead.

Tiger Population
Another major attraction of the Dudhwa National Park is its tiger population. Holidays in Dudhwa National Park gives ample opportunity to site the majestic creatures, the tigers.Once Dudhwa was severely affected by man-eating tigers. Although today one hardly hears of man-eating tigers in Dudhwa, the structure of the Park could have facilitated the attacks. This is probably the only Park that doesn't have adequate buffer area to support the main Park. This leads to conflict between human beings and animals that do not respect each other’s territories.

In the late 70s, Dudhwa became a wildlife hotspot that was famous the world over. The reason – indiscriminate killings by a tiger. On March 2, 1978, the first ever case of man-eating in the history of the National Park was registered. Soon after, three more men were killed. Suddenly, shock and fear gripped the entire area. The entire city lodged a protest with the forest officials, demanding the man-eater be killed.

The Increasing Incidence of Man- Eating
One after another, reports of more killings began to make the headlines of newspapers, but soon, the tale of the man-eating tiger acquired a new twist. The forest officials and the public had by now started believing that Tara, a tigress born in a zoo in London, brought up in Billy Arjun Singh’s farmhouse, Tiger Haven and rehabilitated in Dudhwa, was behind the killings. Billy, the man who was instrumental in getting the Park notified was conducting experiments on the big cats.
After rearing leopard and tiger cubs to adulthood, he had tried to rehabilitate them in the jungle. These experiments invited both criticism and appreciation from wildlife lovers all over the world.

The forest officials and the locals had a strong feeling that Billy’s experiments had failed and the tigress he introduced in the wild had not acquired the skill, agility or technique to hunt, which is very important for any tiger to survive. Tara was born and brought up in the company of men, and the forest officials believed that she was not afraid of human beings. They were convinced that since she did not know how to hunt alert and agile wild animals, she had taken to man-eating. Even today, the controversy rages on.

However, after a total 24 cases of man-eating, the killer tigress was done to death by the forest officials (Billy himself was one of the hunters) on November 11, 1979. It was once again a season of arguments and counter arguments. While one lobby tried to project the killed tigress as Tara, Billy presented evidence to deny the same. Nonetheless, whosoever she was, this man-eating tigress of Dudhwa is very much alive in the memories of the elders and the staff of Dudhwa.

Tigers Are Not Born Man-Eaters
It is not so that Dudhwa has only negative experiments to its credit; it has a few success stories as well. Billy and Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, who was the Director of the Park, even conducted experiments to reform man-eating tigers. Both Billy and Yadav are passionate conservationists. Both of them are of the opinion that tigers are not born man-eaters, they are forced into man-eating only when human beings encroach upon their habitat and interfere with their lifestyle. Guided by their instincts in such a situation, tigers are forced to attack and eat man. Detailed and minute observations of the site of killings over a period of time turned this conjecture into a belief.