Wildlife Sanctuary

Wildlife Sanctuaries are reserved forests where wild animals are protected and provided with suitable living conditions. Unlike a zoo, animals in wildlife sanctuaries live in their natural habitat and are free to roam anywhere they like.

People living in Wildlife Sanctuaries can:

  • Graze livestock, and
  • Collect firewood or medicinal plants.

Activities prohibited in wildlife sanctuaries include:

  • Killing (poaching) animals
  • Capturing animals

These activities in wildlife sanctuaries are punishable by law.

Wildlife Sanctuaries in India

Indian wildlife sanctuaries have unique landscapes which include broad-level forests, mountain forests, and bushlands in deltas of big rivers. They protect several threatened wildlife species such as golden cat, pink-headed duck, blackbuck, white-eyed buck, gharial, marsh crocodile, elephant, rhinoceros, python etc. Unfortunately, people encroach upon the land of these protected forest areas and destroy them.

There are 543 wildlife sanctuaries in India, which include as many as 50 tiger reserves that focus on the conservation of the tiger. The tiger reserves work under Project TigerJim Corbett was the first tiger reserve of India. It is situated in Uttarakhand and is also the oldest national park in India.

Project Tiger is a government initiative to protect tigers. Its objective was to ensure the survival and maintenance of the population of tigers in India. Similarly, some of these wildlife sanctuaries are called bird sanctuaries as they focus on protecting birds. Keoladeo National Park, for example, was a bird sanctuary before it attained the National Park status.