Faunal Diversity of Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary, Madhya Pradesh

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Protected areas (PAs) are important in terms of maintaining ecological balance, which are idyllically maintained as inviolate landscapes. However, the optimistic idea of managing PAs has somehow little far from reality. Many of the PAs in our country are suffering from a disease of "poor management" which makes them no better than any other forested areas. Although the management plans of PAs loudly talk about co-existence, stringent protection measures, habitat improvement, habitat management etc., somewhere there is a lack of scientific approach in the management. PA management in Madhya Pradesh forest department is however, mostly tiger oriented and there are some well managed tiger reserves in the state. Tiger as an umbrella species keystone species is no doubt a better option to be protected along with its ecosystem. It may be voluntary relocation of villages or management of prey-predator populations, the wildlife scenario of Madhya Pradesh has successfully achieved global attention. In this context, the importance of less charismatic and conservation dependent species is also slowly gaining attention.

One among the 25 Wildlife sanctuaries of Madhya Pradesh, Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary is situated in the Vindhyan hill ranges and is one of a least studied area in terms of the faunal diversity (Dwivedi, 2003; Anonymous, 2012, Chandra et al, 2012, Envis, M.P. 2018). The present study highlights the rich diversity of the sanctuary through long-term scientific faunal explorations by Central Zone Regional Centre of Zoological Survey of India. In this multi taxa survey, many groups of animals were surveyed for the first time, on which virtually no information was available in the working management plan. During recent year’s faunal diversity of Veerangana Durgavati and Singhori wildlife sanctuary were documented from the adjoining areas of this sanctuary which accounted for 616 and 636 faunal species respectively (Director, Zoological Survey of India, 2016a & b).

Based on the Management Plan, Nauradehi wildlife sanctuary consisting of six ranges spreads across three districts in the state of Madhya Pradesh, namely Sagar, Damoh and Narsinghpur (Fig. 1). Three ranges, namely Mohli, Singpur and Noradchi fall in Sagar district; Sarra and Jhapan in Damoh district; and Dongargaon range in Narsinghpur district. The tract is continuous and has similar ecological and geomorphological characters. The sanctuary lies between 7905" and 79025" East longitude and 2305" and 23043" North latitude. The sanctuary comprising an area of 1034.523 km2 was notifies vied Government of Madhya Pradesh Notification No.700-624-Ten-2-75/17-2-1975. In the year 1983, this sanctuary was given the status of wildlife division, vide notification no. 1912-10-1-84 Dated 2-3-1984 and the area of the division was increased from 1034.523 km2 to 1186.961 km2, vide government Madhya Pradesh Notification no. 15-1-84-10-2 Dated 9-3-1984.

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