Pench Tiger Reserve – History
The
forests of the present Pencha National Park finds mention in the 16th
century CE document, Ain-i-Akbari, written by Abu’l-Fazl ibn Mubarak. It
describes its natural wealth and richness. The Jungle Book, an immensely
popular and much-loved wildlife novel by Rudyard Kipling, is based on Pench.
The story of Mowgli was inspired by a real story prevalent in the region. In
1831, a child who had grown up with wolves in Satbavadi village near Seoni was caught
by Lieutenant Moor.
This incident
led Sir William Henry Sliman to write “An account of wolves’ nurturing children
in their dens,” which probably led to the inception of “The Jungle Book.”
Kipling borrowed heavily from Robert Armitage Strendale's books 'Seonee',
'Mammalia of India and Ceylon' and 'Denizens of the Jungle' for the topography,
wildlife, and its ways. Several natural history books like R. A. Strendale's
‘Seonee - Camp life in the Satpuras’, Forsyth’s ‘Highlands of Central India’ and
Dunbar Brander’s ‘Wild animals of Central India’ vividly described the natural
wealth of the Pench National Park.
The Pench sanctuary with an area of 449.392 sq. kms was established in 1977. An
area of 292.857 sq. km out of 449.392 sq. kms was declared as Pench National Park in 1983 and the rest 118.473 sq. kms remained as Pench sanctuary. The
government of India declared 757.85 sq. kms including the National Park and the
sanctuary was the 19th tiger reserve of the country in 1992.
The Pench National Park and Pench Sanctuary were renamed as Indira Priyadarshini
Pench National Park & Pench Mowgli Sanctuary in year 2002. The national
park was again renamed as Indira Priyadarshini Pench National Park in 2005. The
areas of the national park and sanctuary are declared as core area of Pench Tiger Reserve in 2007. The Buffer Zone of the tiger reserve has been notified in
2010. The park won the best management award in 2011.
The Pench National Park provided the location used by the BBC for the innovative
wildlife series Tiger: Spy in the Jungle, a three-part documentary
narrated by Sir David Attenborough which used concealed cameras,
placed by elephants, in order to capture intimate tiger behavior and also
retrieved footage of various other fauna in the reserve. The programme aired
for the first time in March 2008 and ended a month later.
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