Satpura Tiger Reserve (STR)

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About Satpura Tiger Reserve (STR)

Location:
- It is located in the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh.
- It is located in the Satpura ranges of the Central Indian Landscape.
- It lies south of the river Narmada.
Satpura, basically meaning “Seven Folds”, forms a watershed between the Narmada and Tapti Rivers is triangular in shape.
It is part of the Deccan bio-geographic zone of India.
It is part of the Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve.
STR is part of one of the largest tiger habitats in the world, extending over 10,000 sq km along with the forest areas of Betul, Harda, Khandwa, and Melghat forest divisions.
Corridor: It has corridor connectivity with Pench National Park.
The habitat is also an important testimony to human evolution, as it houses more than 50 rock shelters that are almost 1500 to 10,000 years old.
Geological formations include the Deccan trap series, Gondwanas, and Metamorphic rocks.
Flora:
- This reserve is largely made up of mixed forests with a sizeable proportion of Sal and Teak.
- These mixed forests consist of tree species like jamun, baheda, palash, mahua, saja, bija, tendu, arjun, semal, salai, kusum, achar, etc.
- Twenty-six species of the Himalayan region and 42 species of the Nilgiri area are found. Hence, STR is also known as the northern extremity of the Western Ghats.
Fauna: Tiger is the charismatic species along with other mammals like Leopards, Spotted Deer, Sambar, Barking Deer, Chousingha, Indian Gaur, Blue Bull, Jungle Cat, besides co predators, birds, reptiles and fishes.

Q1) What is the Central Indian Landscape?

Located to the south of the Vindhya hill range, Central India is well known for its sal (Shorearobusta) forests, in fact the region is the meeting point of sal (Shorearobusta) from the north and teak (Tectonagrandis) forests from the south.This landscape supports approx. 16% of the total population of tigers found in India, with some of the largest contiguous forested tracks connected through wildlife corridors.Some of the tiger reserves critical from a conservation standpoint in this landscape are Kanha, Satpuda, Pench, Melghat, Tadoba and Achanakmar.

Source: Madhya Pradesh: 10,000-year-old rock painting found in Satpura Tiger Reserve