Location Mizoram, India Visitors NA Established 1985 | Nearest city Aizawl Area 550 km² | |
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Governing body Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India | ||
Dampa Tiger Reserve or Dampha Tiger Reserve, the largest wildlife sanctuary in Mizoram, was notified in 1985 and declared a Tiger Reserve in 1994. It is situated in the western part of Mizoram state, at the international border with Bangladesh about 127 km from Aizawl. It covers an area of approximately 550 km². The tropical forests of Dampa are home to rich flora and fauna. It consists of forest interpolated with steep precipitous hills, deep valleys, jungle streams, ripping rivulets, natural salts licks, with an altitudinal zone of 200–800 mts. Dampa Tiger Reserve is a part of Project Tiger funded by the Government of India.
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Etymology
Dampa Tiger Reserve consists of Dampa hills, Pathlawi Lunglen hill, Chhawrpial Hills and many others. It is called Dampa because a long time back there used to be a village called Dampa where a lot of the womenfolk died, hence a lot of lonely bachelors were left behind, hence the name "Dam pa" or "lonely Men".
Administration
Jurisdiction is under two ranges, namely Teirei Range leh Phuldungsei Range. Workers consist of a Field Director who is headquartered in W. Phaileng. There are also about five foresters and 10 regular forest guards.
Forest and Wildlife
Dampa Tiger Reserve is the natural home of leopards, Indian bison, barking deer, sloth bear, gibbons, langurs, slow loris, rhesus macaque, Indian Python(Python Molurus Molurus), wild boar and a variety of birds. Unfortunately its namesake tiger has disappeared almost entirely, the enumeration indicated only 4 individuals in 1994, when it was pronounced as a tiger reserve. None were seen again. However, Aaranyak, a society for biodiversity conservation at Guwahati, and WWF India analysed faecal sample in March 2012 using DNA fingerprinting, and announced the genetic evidence of tiger presence in the reserve. The result showed that out of 27 scats collected, 9 were of tiger origin and work is continued to find out the number of individual tigers. It has been reported that there has been an increase in built up (590%), bamboo forest (192.89%) and scrub (74.67%) areas. These increases are simultaneously accompanied by decrease in cover area of evergreen/semi evergreen closed forests from 152.47 km2 in 1978 to 95.27 km2 in 2005. This could be due to the practice of shifting cultivation by villagers at the border of the reserve. A 62-km fence and patrol road along the Bangladesh boundary near the reserve in Mizoram is being constructed despite concerns on the impact of animal movements.