Setting its sight on promoting eco-tourism in the City Beautiful, the UT Administration has made Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary easily accessible to the trekking and adventure lovers.
Pulling out all the stops to make the 26 square km Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary a prominent eco-tourism spot in the city, the UT Administration has uploaded the trekking route maps, permission forms of Sanctuary on its official website. To give a chance to the trekking and adventure lovers to explore the unique terrain of the Sanctuary, the maps displays eight trekking routes, location of choe (seasonal streams), well, dams, traditional water towers, inspection roads, Nepli inspection house, Kansal log hut, reservoirs and signages constructed along the nature trails.
The map of Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary having eight trekking routes created to promote eco-tourism including Nepli inspection Hut to Kansal log Hut, Kansal loghut to Nepli gate, Nepli Gate to Nepli Inspection hut etc have been separately displayed on the website. While seven tracks are from 5 km to 9 km, only one track is of two and half km.
An application form to seek permission to visit Sanctuary is also made available on the website and could be downloaded by the residents. Besides, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department has also prepared a brochure displaying trekking routes and detailing attractions during trekking, Do’s/Don’t during trekking in the Sanctuary. Notably, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department had roped in the PEC University of Technology to prepare digital maps and digital model or 3-D representation of the Sanctuary.
While talking to The Pioneer, UT Chief Wildlife Warden Santosh Kumar said, “The maps of Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary have been uploaded on the official website of Administration to make it easily accessible to the nature lovers.” He said, “The digital maps of the Sanctuary would help the trekkers in exploring different trekking routes, water bodies etc.” “Soon, a brochure prepared by the Department giving details of different features and maps of the forest area would be released,” he said
Santosh informed “A digital model of city’s Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary has also been prepared by the PEC University of Technology. The digital model of the Sanctuary would help the Department to keep tab on forest area and habitat of a particular wildlife species and the areas where the fire incidents are recurrent. It would further assist the authorities in improving the management of the forest area.”
As per the data available with the UT Forest and Wildlife Department, 8900 people had visited the Sanctuary last year. In 2008, nearly 10733 people visited the Sanctuary while in 2009, 10828 had visited it. In 2010, the statistics had descended to 8154 and in 2011, 8219 people had visited the Sanctuary. The Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary forms the part of Sukhna lake catchment area falling in Shivalik hills. It inhibits nine species of mammals and 63 species of birds.
The Sanctuary is inhabited by a large number of Sambars, peacocks and endangered species like spotted deer, porcupine, pangolin, wild pigs, cheetal. The wildlife habitat also houses wide variety of butterflies, moth, honey-bee and other micro-organisms in abundance besides a variety of replies including snakes like cobra, rat snake, Common krait, Russell’s viper, Indian python and common monitor (Gho), freshwater turtle.