Bandipur National Park

Location : Chamarajanagar District of Karnataka
Famous For : Asian Elephants
Distance : 220 kms from Bangalore
Best Time to Visit : March to August

Bandipur national Park one of India's best known wildlife sanctuaries located in the Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka in South India and covers a forest area of 865 square kilometers. It was declared a National Park in 1974 and is one of the original 9 Project Tiger reserves. It is home to around seventy tigers and over three thousand Asian elephants, along with leopards, dholes, gaur and sloth bears.

Bandipur National Park occupies a special place in India's efforts towards natural conservation. It was created in the 1930s from the local Maharaja Voodiyar's hunting lands, and named Venugopal Wildlife Park. Bandipur National Park was expanded later in 1941 to adjoin the Nagarhole National Park, which lay towards its northern edge, and Wayanad and Madumulai Sanctuaries, which lay towards its southern edge in the states of Kerala and Tamilnadu, respectively. The entire area now constitutes the vast Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, one of India's most extensive tracts of protected forest. It has been a designated tiger reserve in 1973.

Flora in Bandipur National Park:

Bandipur National Park has deciduous, evergreen and scrubland vegetation. The major flora found in bandipur national park is chloroxylon swetenia, acacia catechu, schleichera trijuga, cassia fistula, shorea talura, randia uliginosa. teak (tectona grandis), dalbergia latifolia, pterocarpus marsupium, terminalia tomentosa, anogeissus latifolia, adina cordifolia, grewia tiliaefolia, odina wodiar, butea monosperma, emblica officinalis, lagerstroemia lanceolata, terminalia chebula, dendrocalamus strictus, and bambusa arundinacea.

Climate (Bandipur National Park):

The region is warm and comfortable for most parts of the year with temperatures ranging from 24 to 28°C, except for the brief winter that lasts from October to January when the temperature hovers around the 19°C mark. Monsoon is erratic, but it generally rains from June to September.

Reaching There(Bandipur National Park):

Bandipur National Park is located on the highway connecting Mysore and the hill station of Ootacamund (Ooty). Reaching Bandipur by bus is very convenient. All regular and express state transport buses plying between Ooty and Mysore pass through the park fringes and the Forest Department Center is a designated bus stop. It takes 2½ hours to reach Bandipur forest from Mysore and about 3 hours from Ooty. The nearest rail junction is Mysore (65 km) and the nearest international airport is the software Mecca of Bangalore (204 km).

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