Faunal Diversity of Satkosia and Baisipalli Wildlife Sanctuaries, Satkosia Tiger Reserve

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The Satkosia Tiger Reserve, located in the Eastern Highlands, is a moist deciduous forest ecoregion with immense scenic charm, In 1976, it was established as a wildlife sanctuary and in December 2007, it was notified as a Tiger Reserve, encompassing Satkosia Gorge Sanctuary and Baisipalli Sanctuary.

Lying in a transitional zone extending between the Chhota Nagpur Plateau and the Deccan Plateau. the Tiger Reserve exhibits endemic life forms of both biotic regions. With significant coverage of deciduous and Sal forest, this Tiger Reserve is home to a variety of wildlife, including Tiger, Leopard, Elephant, Gaur, Sloth bear, Wild dog, and different reptilian species, as also a wide variety of resident and migratory birds. The river Mahanadi cuts right across the Eastern Ghats and has formed a magnificent gorge along the Tiger Reserve.

Satkosia Tiger Reserve comprises two adjoining sanctuaries of central Odisha named Satkosia Gorge Sanctuary and Baisipalli Sanctuary. The habitats of these protected areas include north Indian tropical moist deciduous forests, moist peninsular low-level Sal and northern tropical dry deciduous forest interspersed with open forest and riparian zones. This unique habitat assemblage supports the varied faunal composition of these adjoining protected areas.

The Zoological Survey of India has conducted a series of surveys in both the sanctuaries and amalgamated the information on the animal wealth of the region in its publication 'Faunal Diversity of Satkosia and Baisipally Wildlife Sanctuaries, Satkosia Tiger Reserve.

I am sure that the book will not only be a good reference document but will also give a boost to conservation activities.

I congratulate the Director, ZSI, the scientists, and the entire team of ZSI for their commendable efforts.

Biodiversity refers to the variety and variability of all life including all species of plants, animals and micro-organisms, the ecosystems and the ecological processes of which they are parts. Where rich biodiversity is an indicator of a healthy ecosystem, it also provides wide range of goods and services that are essential for the sustenance of the biota. Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is an indicator of sustainable development. Unfortunately, during the last century, a drastic decline in biodiversity has been observed in different parts of the world in an alarming rate leading to mass extinction. Anthropogenic activities and over exploitation of the resources existing in an ecosystem has destroyed its homeostasis and altered the habitat of the native species. This has threatened the survival of endemic species making them endangered. Therefore, the present day ecosystem research has advocated the conservation of habitat and the environment for giving all the species to grow undisturbed in their native habitat. Despite the considerable worldwide efforts to establish the wildlife protected areas, destruction of wildlife habitats has remained the leading threat to biodiversity. Biodiversity that we observe today is the outcome of 3.5 billion years of evolutionary changes, sculptured by natural process. It is not distributed evenly across the globe resulting in 17 megadiverse countries representing high species richness and endemism and India is one of them. India's enormous biological diversity encompasses ecosystems, population, species and their genetic make-up. This diversity can be attributed to the vast variety in physiographic and climatic situations resulting in a diversity of ecological habitats ranging from tropical, sub-tropical, temperature, alpine to desert. India has about 45,000 species of plants and 1,00,693 species of animals with high level of endemism which accounts for nearly 8 percent of the world's living organisms. But, at finer scale a huge disparity in the faunal explorations across different states of India exists. Thus, few regions of the country represent bulk of this enormous biological diversity while many states of India including Odisha are either unexplored or poorly documented.