Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav will on Monday inaugurate the state’s ninth tiger reserve – Madhav National Park – by releasing a tiger and tigress, officials said.
Yadav will also inaugurate a 13-kilometre-long stone safety wall inside the park.
In a statement on Sunday, Yadav expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “gifting” the state its ninth tiger reserve, which will be the 58th such protected park for the striped big cats.
He said that the tiger reserve, located in Shivpuri district, will promote wildlife conservation and tourism.
This is a major achievement of Madhya Pradesh in the field of wildlife conservation, he said.
According to officials, the reserved forest area of Madhav National Park, which will also now be known as Madhav Tiger Reserve, is 32,429.52 hectares. Its protected forest area spreads over 2,422 hectares, while the revenue area is 2,671.82 hectares.
The entire park has an area of 37,523.344 hectares or 375.23 square kilometres, they said.
The national park now has five tigers. With the release of two more tigers on Monday, the total number of big cats in this reserve will increase to seven.
As per the report ‘Status of Tigers: Co-predators & Prey in India-2022’, released by the National Tiger Conservation Authority and Wildlife Institute of India (latest census), Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of tigers in the country at 785, followed by Karnataka (563) and Uttarakhand (560).
