Chakradhara Meadow

[Debasis Bose]

Early morning shot of Chakradhara, with sambar deer in foreground and silhouette of bandhavgarh fort hill in background. Chakradhara is a large sprawling meadow surrounded by hillocks inside the park, once was popular for the tiger sighting. During the summers this meadow used to look like a open hunting ground for the predators. It is a marshy meadow which is rich in flora and fauna. As the availability of food, water and hiding grass is through out the year, so the wild animals can be easily sighted in this region. It used to be favorite place of dominant tigers like Charger, B2 and Bamera of this reserve due to availability of water and food, it is favorite place of wild animals, which in turn use to increase the probability of good animal sighting including tiger. Today Chakradhara's marshy meadow still is rich with flora & fauna, but currently no tigress have made this prime land her territory nor any dominant male has established his dominance due to frequent human movement on foot, bicycle, motor cycle and fencing of chakradhara meadow, that is to remain for next 5 years!!!!

Nikon, Nikor 70-200 F2.8, Shot @ 70 F8, ISO 900, 1/500s. Full screen view recommended to get the feel of the landscape

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice mystic image of the forest in the morning after rains. Sambar are in the open, its their behaviour. Has this meadow been fenced to mark passage of the pilgrims? Thanks for sharing. SaktiWild

[Debasis Bose]

Dear Saktida, As mentioned on the board, Chakradhara has been fenced to study science of grass meadows and that also for 5 years, half of chakradhara meadow has been fenced. So one can understand the movement of human on foot, bicycle and mobike and one of the reason predator keeping away from the most prime areas. Also, the elephant grass has been removed from the meadow, understand this is to replace it with edible grass. But elephant grass use to keep the chakradhara meadow moist and facilitated tigers to stalk its prey. This is a excellent example of how we human change the landscape and finally make it barren over the time. Regards Debasis

[Mrudul Godbole]

Beautiful feel of an early morning in the jungle. The sambar deers make the image more interesting. When I had first visited Bandhavgrah in 2007, I had sighted B2 and the Chakradhara Female there. It surely is an amazing place to sight tigers.

I visited Bandhavgarh a few times after that, with every visit feeling that the tourists are increasing and the sightings decreasing. Finally stopped going there from 2010.

Now seeing the fencing in this place, it really saddens me that we are continuing to ruin the tiger habitat :(. Thanks for sharing.

[Debasis Bose]

Dear Mrudul Madame, I was there from 2nd Oct to 7th Oct, did total of 9 safaris, for 1st two days ours was the only jeep along with one BBC jeep, but still it was difficult to sight any animals because of so much movement of labour force and forest beat guards. The forest now looks more like a game park similar to Nandan Kanan, Borivali park, San Deigo safari park etc rather than tiger reserve

[Sabyasachi Patra]

The wooden stakes and fence gives a feel of a rural home. Any person would love to be in such a home. :)

The invasion of exotics started sometime in 2008-2009 and that remained unchecked. Bandhavgarh is a small reserve and it is badly managed. The tourism pressure has changed the landscape forever. The disturbance caused for construction of roads for tourists as well as the heavy tourist traffic has taken a toll. Also, people don't realise that Bandhavgarh reserve can't sustain a population of 10-11 elephants, but is forced to as these elephants are used for tourism. Bandhavgarh used to dense and over a period of time cutting firewood as well as branches for elephants have taken its toll. The rampant commercialisation makes me feel sick and I have stopped visiting Bandhavgarh because of that reason.