Kukrail Reserve Forest

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Kukrail Reserve Forest (

Hindi: कुकरैल जंगल), an urban forest created in 1950s as a plantation forest, is located about 9 km northwest from Lucknow city centre in the Uttar Pradesh state of India.[1] It has a captive breeding and conservation center for the freshwater gharials
(gavialis gangeticus), one of the 3 native species of crocodiles in India.

A young gharial in the breeding center at Kukrail Reserve Forest.

It is one of such 3 crocodile-breeding centers in India. Kukrail crocodile centre and the

salt-water crocodiles) are rated as top two most success crocodile breeding centres by National Geographic Society, the third being the Crocodile Breeding Centre at Kurukshetra
(breeds only freshwater muggers).

Background

Etymology

It is named after the place where it was planted in Lucknow, i.e. Kukrail Pul.[1]

History

Forest was planted in 1950 and gharial breeding program commenced in 1978.[1]

Kurail urban plantation forest

Location

Kukrail Reserve Forest is located in Indranagar, adjacent to Mayur Residency Extension, on picnic spot road.

The forest was planted in 1950s over 5000 acres to serve as city's green lungs. Forests department has several nurseries - herbal nursery, medicinal nursery and sapling nursery - spread across the forest, which are connected by the nature trails and sell plants at low price. Sapling from the nurseries here are sent across the state for the afforestation. It is a popular picnic spot.[1]

Flora

Forest has teak, peltophorum, acacia, prosopis juliflora, mango, eucalyptus, holoptelea integrifolia ,Dates ,Ficus infectoria ,peepal ,neem and numerous other plant species.[1]

Fauna

The forest has over 200 species residents local and migrants birds. March to April spring season is best for bird watching.[1]

Conservation

Gharial conservation

Kukrail Gharial Rehabilitation Centre,

salt water crocodile which are not breed here. By 1975, only 300 gharials were remaining in Uttar Pradesh. Consequently, Uttar Pradesh Forest Department collected gharial eggs from the river banks, incubated, and released adult gharials in to various rivers. Kukrali captive-breeding programme for gharial is one of the two such most successful wildlife conservation programmes in the country, other being Madras Crocodile Bank Trust.[1]

Kurail Gharial breeding center project was established in 1978 by the Uttar Pradesh forest department in collaboration with

International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (UNO) estimated that there were only 300 crocodile left in the open rivers of Uttar Pradesh.[1]

Gharial breeding

Center has been 4 resident females and two resident male gharials for captive breeding, till 2016 total of 5410 gharial juveniles have been released into various rivers including 254 into Ganges river. Apart from breeding crocodiles in the park, crocodile eggs are also collected from the banks of

Sharda, Ghaghra, Girwa, Ramganga and Ganges rivers. This programme has contributed to the improvement in the gharial's status not only in Uttar Pradesh but also in the neighbouring states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan as well as has provided gharials to zoos and nature parks in Odisha, Kanpur, Delhi, West Bengal, Chennai, Bhutan, Tokyo, New York, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.[3]

Gharial research

For the scientific study, at the time of release into the wild the juveniles are tagged with color coded tags and unique identification numbers which can be later seen with the help of binacular. Some gharials were released with high frequency (VHF) radio tags into the Ghaghra river for better tracking for the scientific study. Centre also uses biologging to research the underwater behaviour of free ranging gharials in which a light weight camera if tied to the head of gharial at the time of release which detaches from the gharial after 4 hours, it collects diving depths, swimming speeds and frequency of movements, etc. Detached cameras are collected for the research.[3]

Mugger rehabilitation

Mugger (crocodylus palustris) rescued from the surrounding area are kept here to provide veterinary care until they are healed enough to be released back in the rivers.[3]

Turtle conservation

Ganga Action Plan which conducts scientific research and develops broad based inclusive colonies of all endangered turtles.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Kukrail Gharial Rehabilitation Centre info sheet". Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  2. ^ Choudhury, B. C. (1999). "Crocodile Breeding in Indian Zoos". Envis Wildlife and Protected Areas. 2 (1): 100–103.
  3. ^ a b c d Conserving gharial centre at Kukrail, The Better India, 3 Jul 2016.

External links

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