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Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary

Itanagar Reserve Forest was declared as Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary with the geographical boundary as Pam River in the East, Pachin in the South, Neorochi on the North-East and Chingke stream in the North. The capital of Arunachal Pradesh, Itanagar in located within the Sanctuary. The area was rich in the population of Wildlife like Sambar, Barking Deer, Elephant herbs, Tiger and Panthers. But now their numbers have unfortunately gone down due to expansion of human habitation and clearance of forest covers for development purposes, settlements etc. The State bird of Arunachal Pradesh, the magnificent Hornbill used to be found in the Sanctuary, but their population came down drastically due to loss of habitat. However, the Wildlife is still available in a fair number especially in the northern and eastern side of the Itanagar Sanctuary.

Stake analysis: Hunting is a way of life for the local tribals of Arunachal Pradesh which is primarily for meat and secondary for skin, teeth, bones, anther, feather and beaks. All these are customarily believed to be decorative trophies and sign of masculinity and values. Mostly animals of higher vertebrae, birds and fishes are the main victims of hunting. The proliferation of population in the capital city with increasing number of guns has also resulted in depletion of wildlife population.

Place of sight: The important destinations of tourists are as The Zoological Park under the control of Dy. Chief Wildlife Warden, the Ganga Lake under the control of the D.F.O., Social Forestry Division and Directorate of fisheries, the Ita Fort, the State Museum and the State Forest Research Institute.

Vegetation: The vegetation of this Sanctuary can be classified as tropical semi evergreen and wet evergreen. The main features of the forest are Heterogeneous mixture of the species with the merging of evergreen and semi evergreen forest into one another. Pure patches of bamboos are very common in almost all the area. The terrain is entirely hilly except the valleys and foothills. The hills are very broken and cut up by numerous streams and rivers. The valleys are narrow and the hill slopes are mostly steep to very steep. A large chunk of Sanctuary falls under Mixed Bamboo forests.

The most common bamboos are found in these forest areas are (1) Bambusa palida (Bijuli) (2) Dendrocalamus hamiltonii (Kako).

Tree species are (1) Duabanga grandiflora (Khokan) (2) Amoora Wallichii (Aman) (3) Toona ciliata (Poma) (4) Magnolia spp. (Sopa) (5) Schima Wallichii (Makrisal) and Castonopsis indica (Hingori) etc. Grass present here are succharam procerum, S.Spontamum, Andropogon assimillis, phramites karka, Allpinia allugus.

Fauna: The Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary was very rich in Wildlife both in variety and number, which has unfortunately dwindled in the recent past for the reasons, described in the proceeding paras. Animals like Elephants, Tigers, Panthers, Sambar, Barking Deer and Bears were quite common. Hornbills were very common bird to sight. But now it is a chance to sight a Hornbill.

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