Since
1992 Pench has been included under the umbrella of Project Tiger as the 19th Project
Tiger Reserve. This Kipling country covers the Seoni and Chhindwara districts of
Madhya Pradesh. The Pench tiger reserve is a dry deciduous forest of predominantly
teak trees and as such supports a rich and diverse array of wildlife. These hills
were once known as the Seoni forests and it was here that Kipling chose to locate
his story of the wolf boy Mowgli.
Comprising
of 758 sq. kms out of which a core area of 299 sq km is the National Park and 464
sq km the buffer area of southern Indian tropical moist deciduous forest mixed with
tropical dry deciduous teak bearing forests and dry mixed deciduous forest. With
the three types of forest a diversity of fauna abound within this natural system.
Tiger is the main cat species of the park present in good numbers and sightings
have become increasingly common lately. Commonly seen wildlife is chital, sambhar,
nilgai, wild boar, and jackal. Other wild animals found are leopard, sloth bear,
wild dog, porcupine, jungle cat, fox, striped hyena, gaur, chowsingha and barking
deer.
There
are more than 170 species of birds including several migratory ones. Some of them
are peafowl, junglefowl, crow pheasant, crimson-breasted barbet, red-vented bulbul,
racket-tailed drongo, magpie robin, lesser whistling teal, pintail, shoveler, egret
and herons.
IN THE FIELD UPDATE
Mar 2012 - Pench won a Government sponsored Tiger Park Award for the best administered park in India, and the sheer number of deer and antelope would highlight the management’s success. The famous ‘BBC Spy in the Jungle’ film was shot here, and one of the daughters of the famed Tigress, rather uninspiringly called ‘collared tigress’, now occupies the central region with her five teenaged cubs. Raising five healthy cubs in the wild is an immense feat in itself. We hope they thrive this season and make it past the coming summer to adulthood. Another tigress has also been spotted with 2 cubs just over a year old. There are new undocumented Tigers reported from the Karmajhari and Jamtara ranges which is great news.
Feb 2011 - The park has just won an Tiger Park Award for the best
administered park in India, and sheer animal numbers would highlight the management’s
obvious success. The park has always had excellent herbivore densities (Sambhar,
large herds of Chital grazing on the receding waters of the reservoir, wild boar
and Gaur to name a few). Birding is also superb including many deciduous woodland
and waterbird species. The famous ‘BBC Spy in the Jungle’ film was shot
here, and one of the daughters of the Tigress, called rather blandly ‘collared
tigress’, now occupies the central region and has just come out of hiding
with her new batch of five, 4 month old, cubs (Five cubs is very unusual). She has
already brought up four other cubs to adulthood over the last three years, so proving
to be a highly successful mother. Another 5 females are said to live within the
core area – and they have good food to sustain them.
Please note: Pench has a strict route system, which is working
well to decrease tourism pressure. Try and avoid weekends as it’s near the
large city of Nagpur. You can also hire the good TOFT trained guides here for your
guests.