Vertebrate Fauna of Kangerghati, Guru Ghasidas and Sanjay National Parks : Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh

Contents: 1. An overview/Rina Chakraborty. 2. Mammalia/Rina Chakraborty. 3. Aves/Rina Chakraborty. 4. Reptilia/Rina Chakraborty, N.C. Gayen and S. Kar. 5. Amphibia/K. Deuti. 6. Pisces: freshwater fishes/Subrata Kar.

From the Introduction: "The rapid growth of human and livestock populations coupled with urbanization and industrialization in the twentieth century and consequent pressure of land hunger and development have taken an increasingly heavy toll of the country's wilderness. Conservation measures to mitigate the impacts of these pressures, however have largely been slow and inadequate (Rodgers et al., 2002). Process of setting up of Wildlife Protected Areas (PAs) was started some fifty years ago.

The newly formed state Chhatisgarh which came into existence on 1 November, 2000 is one of the small state in India which was actually the eastern part of the state Madhya Pradesh. The state is privileged to have the oldest reserve forest in the country and thus, has a long history of forest management as well as tribal and cultural heritage. The state covers an area of 1, 35,084 sq km of which 2929.50 sq km offered to National Parks and 3419.56 sq km to sanctuaries. All together it has got three National Parks of which largest is the Guru Ghasidas National Park and the smallest is Kangerghati National Park which cover 1471.00 sq km and 200 sq km areas respectively.

The India is classified into ten broad biogeographic zones (Rodgers et al., 2002) in which the state Chhattisgarh is situated under Deccan Peninsula. The Deccan Peninsula is again subdivided into five sub-zones like Central Highlands, Chhota-Nagpur, Eastern Highlands, Central Plateau and Deccan South. Among those subzones the Sanjay National Park falls under Central Highlands, Western Part of Guru Ghasidas National Park is situated under Central Highlands and Eastern Part is under Chhota-Nagpur Plateau and the Kangerghati National Park falls under Eastern Highlands. The present report is restricted to the Kangerghati and Guru Ghasi Das National Parks of Chhatisgarh and Sanjay National Park of M.P."