Tiger Reserves

Bhopal: While the summer is peaking and water bodies inside jungles are shrinking or drying up, park managers of Panna Tiger Reserve are coming up with out of the box ideas to quench the thirst of animals.
Earlier this month, the park managers discovered a water source from where water was gushing out like it comes out from a water pump. "To exploit the water source located at a place called Imaliya Syahaa inside the jungles, we have laid a 4-km pipeline to draw the commodity with the help of gravity," said RK Mishra, deputy director of Panna Tiger Reserve.
Though Ken river flows through the park for 55 km, the water body is shrinking every day. Mishra, however, claimed that "there is enough water in Ken river, the lifeline of Panna". Availability of water is being monitored on regular basis, he said. There are seven tankers inside the park for transporting water. "They are transporting water to the saucers, concrete structures for waters made for wild animals," he said. A saucer has a capacity of almost one tanker of water and it is refilled almost alternate day, he said. The tiger reserve located in Panna district of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh is reeling under extreme hot weather conditions for the past two months. Visibility of wild animals near water bodies inside jungles is ensured for tourists in summers.
Spread over 542 sq km area, Panna Tiger Reserve is known for successful reintroduction of tigers after all the tigers from the park vanished in 2008. At present, Panna has more than 30 tigers. Besides, there are larger number of herbivores. The tiger reserve is also home to some endangered species of vultures. Of the 9 vulture species found in India, six are found in the Panna Tiger Reserve, including the endangered white-backed vulture and the long-billed vulture.