Namdapha Tiger Reserve : an Out of The World Experience

Sandeep Tambe


Noa Dehing River

Namdapha: a mysterious name, as if hidden by a veil of secrecy, like its hornbills and its gibbons -- a fitting name for the most bio-diverse region in this country.

The rain-forests of Namdapha hold an absolute riot of life with myriad species seeming to burst forth from every niche and pore. With an altitudinal variation from 200 msl to 4500 msl, the park harbours a great variation in both flora and fauna. This variation has given rise to the growth of peninsular as well as alpine flora.

It's the place where the hornbills rule the skies, the whirring of their wings during take-off; their huge bodies silhoetted in the evening sky reminding one of some huge prehistoric bird. The serenity and stillness of Namdapha is punctuated only by the shrill shrieks of the hill mynas and the cackles and whistles of the White-capped Laughing Thrush.

Namdapha is the last stronghold of the Hoolock Gibbon -- India's only ape species. A gibbon in motion is one of the most glorious sights a rain forest has to offer. Every morning a primieval drama enacts itself in the tree-tops of this forest. The male hoolock starts with one or two tentative hoots, others join in and the group launches into an ecstatic song and finally the female takes over with a rising peal that gets faster and faster and higher and higher until it becomes a high trill of tonal purity that no human voice could ever hope to match.

A morning ritual which has remained unchanged over millions of years is now threatened by man in his unending quest for the green gold. Remoteness alone will no longer solve the problems of conservation at Namdapha. The human philosophy of `` Shoot anything that moves and chop down anything that doesn't '' is taking it's deathly toll-- what is at stake is not just another frontier but one of our countries last strongholds. For epochs to come the Daphabum will still pierce the lonely vistas , but when the last snow leopard has stalked among the crags, and the last flying squirrel has glided into eternity, a spark of life will have gone, turning these mountains into an expanse of silence.


URL: http://www-int.stsci.edu/~yogesh/wildlife/namtambe.shtml

Last modified on: Tue Apr 5 15:41:44 2005