Desert National Park

Desert National Park Latest News

In a major milestone for the conservation of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB), the Union Environment Minister released two captive-bred male GIBs into the wild at Sam in the Desert National Park, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.

About Desert National Park

• Location: It is located in the Thar Desert near the town of Jaisalmer, in Rajasthan.
• It is one of the largest national parks in the country, covering an area of over 3160 sq. km.
• Topography: The substantial part of the park is on a landscape, which comprises a lakebed of extinct salt lakes and thorny scrub and a considerable area consists of sand dunes. 
• Climate: The area falls in the extreme hot and arid region of the very low rainfall zone (<100mm) of the country.
• One of the most interesting features of this park is the presence of fossils from the Jurassic Period.
• Vegetation
  • The vegetation of a major part of the arid region of the Thar falls under the thorn forest type.
  • The vegetation is quite sparse with open grassland, thorny bushes, plantations and dunes as the broad habitat types.
• Lakes: There are three main lakes in this Park- Rajbaugh Lake, Malik Talao Lake and Padam Talao.
• Flora: The rich flora of the park consists of dhok, ronj, salai and palm trees. The vegetation is sparce, and patches of sewan grass and aak shrub can be seen.
  • Khejri (Prosopis cineraria) is commonly found, which is revered and protected by the local communities, especially the ‘Bishnois’.
• Fauna: Blackbuck, Chinkara, Desert fox, Bengal Fox, Indian Wolf, Desert Cat, Hare etc. Reptiles are also found in abundance and they include spiny –tailed lizard, monitor lizard, saw scaled-viper, Russel viper , Karit.
• The Great Indian Bustard is one magnificent bird found in relatively fair numbers.

Source: PIB

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