Bannerghatta

From Wild India

Bannerghatta National Park is one of the latest National Parks of Karnataka State started in the year 1971 and declared as National Park in the year 1974. It encompasses an area of 109.25 Sq.Kms. It comprises 12 Reserve Forests(R.F) spread over in the districts of Bangalore Urban and Bangalore Rural very close to the fast growing hi-tech city and the capital of Karnataka, Bangalore. This park was started with the primary objectives of bio-conservation and also to provide bio-recreation to the visiting tourists with bio-education facilities to the students and researchers. The park consists of dry deciduous forests interspersed with moist deciduous forests and scrub forests and has been host to a variety of wildlife.

Table of contents

1 Geography

2 Conservation Threats

3 Cooridnates of major areas in Bannerghatta

4 Links

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Geography

  	Division  	-  	Bannerghatta
 	Location 	- 	Bangalore district - Karnataka
 	Area 		- 	109 km2
 	Status 		- 	National Park
 	Latitude 	- 	12�34' - 12�50' N
 	Longitude 	- 	77�31' - 77�38' E
 	Min Elevation 	- 	740 m
 	Max Elevation 	- 	1034 m
 	Highest Peak 	- 	Doddaragihalli Betta (1034 m)
 	Min Rainfall 	- 	600 mm
 	Max Rainfall 	- 	900 mm

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Conservation Threats

Human-elephant conflict levels are very high as the park has 6 villages within and 236 villages surrounding it. Crop-raiding is intense between September and December. The forest is a narrow strip at places like Jayapura doddi, Bantanal and Ragihalli causing restrictions for the movement of elephants.
About 5 kms away from the northwest corner of the park, there is a distillery which attracts elephants. Subsequently the elephants raid crops in the adjoining villages.
Forest fire, water scarcity during dry season and about 7500 cattle visiting the forest from the adjacent villages, are the other problems.
The ever expanding Bangalore city and the Jigini Industrial area which is very close on the eastern boundary of the forest.