Thread: Gir National Park and Gir Wildlife Sanctuary

The Gir National Park and Gir Wildlife Sanctuary has seven major perennial rivers. They are, Saraswati, Hiran, Shingoda, Machhundri, Ghodavari, Datardi and Raval. There are four dams with four reservoirs on all the rivers. The biggest reservoir is on the Kamleshwar Dam and is known as 'the lifeline of Gir'.

During the hot summers, the surface water is available at 300 water points for the wild animals. Whenever there is a poor rainfall there is no availability of surface water at the majority of these points. At such a time there is a huge scarcity of water. One of the major tasks of the forest staff is to make sure that the water is available at this time.

The Gir National Park and Gir Wildlife Sanctuary has more than 400 plant species. According to the Botany department of the M.S. University of Baroda, at present there are 507 plant species. In the year 1964 the Gir forest was declared to be a very dry teak forest classification. The forest in the park is the largest dry deciduous forest in the western part of India.

The forest in the park has teak bearing areas in the eastern portion of the forest that is almost the half of the total area.

The Gir National Park and Gir Wildlife Sanctuary is considered to be an important biological research area. The Gir National Park and Gir Wildlife Sanctuary is considered to be of really amazing educational, scientific, aesthetic and recreational values.

The forest in the park produces 5 million kilograms of green grass through harvesting every year. The green grass harvest is valued at an approximate of Rs. 50 crores. Not only this, but the forest provides almost 15,000 metric tons worth of fuel wood on an annual basis.

I lived at Porbandar during my childhood and have visited the Gir National Sanctuary a couple of times. I have seen the Lions at 15m distance.

So that mean it falls in the state of Gujarat? or is it shared by any other state?

Gir National Park is located in Gujrat (Saurashtra). It is near Junagadh.

yep its in gujarat......! I ve visited Gir Santuary once.....n i was lucky enuf to c 4 lions the first time we took one of the routes....! damn thy take u in a open air jeep or a gypsy n i saw lions like almost on 4 sides of the car ........it was really amazing...! n when we asked the forest person who came along wht if the lions attack...so he simply said climb the trees....thy dont ve nay weapons or anything.....n we were scared than...coz those lions were sitting in front of the car for almost like 20-25 min....!!!!! though it was really fun....but it scared after listening to this guy....!!!! apart from tht there r small villages on these routes n the ppl r jus soo nice ......thy talk to u....let u do the stuff specially churning the buttermilk was soo much fun!!!