The Wilderness of Nepal – Nepal is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of biodiversity. Due to its unique geographical position and latitudinal variation. This wild variation fosters an incredible variety of ecosystems the greatest mountain range on earth, forested hills and valleys. The rectangle of Nepal on the flanks of the Eastern Himalayas is only 160 kilometers. that is a hundred miles wide. Yet in that distance, it drops from the dizzy heights of its northern frontier to an altitude of only a hundred meters, 330 feet on its southern border with India. The Himalayan mountains were created by geological processes that began around 115 million years ago. When a giant raft of the Earth’s crust bearing what is now India broke away from the huge southern landmass.
The raft drifted northward and collided 60 million years ago with Asia. The intervening former ocean floor was buckled into a vast mountain range. The Himalayas meaning home of snow valley between the soaring peaks of a Nepal. Annapurna and Dhaulagiri bound in Sally crabs Saligrams: are black fossils of marine animals that have a spiral shape these ammonite fossils date back to the Jurassic period over a hundred million years ago and provide dramatic evidence that the mighty Himalayas were indeed once underwater. Himalayas curve across South Asia some 2,400 kilometers 1,500 miles.
They stretch between Jammu and Kashmir in the West and Assam in the east and along the way sweep right across northern Nepal. A mountain flight in a light airplane takes one close to the famous ranges. The range is divided into three sections: The Great Himalayas in the north which include Mount Everest The lesser Himalayas in the center and The Outer Himalayas in the south which includes the Shivalik range. The Himalayas have an average height of about six thousand 100 meters that’s 20,000 feet. Of the 109 peaks in the world rising to more than seven thousand three hundred and fifteen meters or 24,000 feet above sea level ninety-six are in this range. Seen through the clouds in winter frozen rivers interspersed the peaks. From the mountain peak to Valley the vegetation changes are Swift. Bare slopes and ice take over the peaks followed by alpine grassland and dwarf shrubs.
Tilda dominates the coniferous zone, the hills are terrorists and cultivated up to about 2700 meters 9,000 feet. The cable car to Manakamana, a popular temple of Nepal offers a good view of the ridge across the Trishuli River. The tropical Zoo is dominated by salt trees. A trip on a dugout canoe takes one through the Rapti River through the derived jungle the canoe is dug out of wood from the Sal or silk cutting a tree. Mugger, crocodile a resident of the river disappears into the water as soon as it comes out of its Riverside came. Another Mugger is half immersed still like a rock. Sandpipers move around in groups in shallow waters. Nearly 12 percent of Nepal’s Terai area is protected as national parks or sanctuaries. These are hotspots of biodiversity protecting many endangered species. The hardwood forests of Chitwan is home to 450 species of birds including the Great Pied Hornbill. The wilderness of the Chitwan National Park, a World Heritage Site is home to the great Indian Rhinoceros the one-horned rhino. An estimated 650 of this Asian variety are protected in the park.
The National Park in the Terai cannot be described as wilderness in the strict sense since Nepal believes that conservation of biodiversity should be compatible with sustainable utilization of forest resources. when the grass inside the open grassland grows tall neighboring villagers are allowed into the park to harvest a number of grass species. It is found that rhinos and elephants can live in secondary forests and as such certain levels of human exploitation of forests for timber, pure wood or father may not be incompatible with the overall biological diversity. The rhinos are noticeable with their protruding horns made of the compacted hen. Homes are present in both the male and the female the body of the rider is covered with a heavy studded armor that is prominently folded in front of the shoulder and around the hind legs. The Rhinos tail is set in a deep groove in the buttock area.
The Rhino is hairless. All rhinos are nearsighted which causes unprovoked attacks in self-defense when a rhino is surprised by saying a bicycle. Rhinos are entirely herbivorous, feeding on tall grass shrubs and aquatic plants. Female rhinos usually produce one young after a gestation period of about 18 months. A rhino calf may stay with its mother for more than two years. Carving occurs once in six to seven years the average lifespan of a rhino is about 70 years. Rhino parts are traded in the international market at very high prices. Since 1975 the Nepal Army has been responsible for dealing with poaching and enforcement of conservation laws. Punishment for rhino poaching is 15 years in jail or a 1 lakh rupee fine or both. Every year catastrophic floods in the Terai wipe out large populations of ungulates. One could catch fleeting glimpses of spotted deer as they dashed through the undergrowth. Sambar deer were also rare to combine.
With the decrease in the supply of prey, tigers have become most elusive. The Negus lakes and ponds of Nepal offer transitory holds for migratory birds on their flight from Mongolia, Siberia, and Tibbet or route to India. The community forests of 20 thousand lakes, a Ramsar site is a paradise for bird watchers. Large numbers of black Ibis rest on treetops. While alone snake bird is all set to spread out its wings to drive. A small party of coots near the hyacinths seems to have broken off from a much larger group circling overhead. Just seven kilometers from Kathmandu the capital city is Toudaha, a historical pond overgrown with water hyacinth winter visitors like Ruddy Shelduck sand porch odds are skiing swimming about here. Continued silting of ponds and lakes is contributed to a large extent by grazing domestic cattle who loosen up the mud on forest floors which is then carried into the lake by the rains.
Unchecked mining is deluding hill after hill as naked hillsides replace the thick Woodlands that normally absorb and store rainfall Nepal suffers lethal floods and mudslides during the monsoons and serious water shortages during the dry season. The wild elephants of Nepal have all but vanished the occasional herd is from the forests of the Shivalik s– and the Terai along the Himalayan foothills input the Uttar Pradesh in India with rapid changes in the landscape and increased human activities the elephant’s stopped their seasonal migration around 1994 through the forests of Uttar Pradesh India to the connecting forests of Kanchanpur, Kailali and Bardia districts of Nepal. They are now confined to forests that cannot sustain their basic needs.
Elephants do appear on the landscape of Chitwan one that’s transported to carry tourists into the forest. They are seen in the rivers along with Mohuts who scrub them clean and give them a bath. Curious tourists watching from all sides this. One has even obliged to give a bath to be apparently delighted tourists on her back. You see more elephants in Chitwan than any other mammals this time. At the imaginative breeding center for endangered elephants on the banks of the river Rapti. Chain two poles, these intelligent beings elephants have got the biggest brain in the animal kingdom sway back and forth in obvious boredom. There is a spectacular evolutionary history of the Proboscidea the order to which elephants and elephant black mammals belong begin about 16 million years ago.
There are only two living representatives of the Proboscidea now: The African elephant and The Asian elephant. The dwindling populations of the Asian elephant have opened the eyes of wildlife managers to the reality that a growing viable population does not exist in the wild anymore. The young ones at the elephant breeding center roam free wooden be the enclosure. They are naturally curious and explore their surroundings. Bananas are a treat always to the tourists as well as to the elephant. But who will teach him how to coordinate the ten thousand art muscles in his trunk to pick up food. This exclusive appendage has myriad uses in the jungle to identify, visualize gather clues, communicate from infancy establish kinship by entwining store vital information from smells and textures to testing the muscular strength of their playmates.
Will the elephant unable to realize the full potential of this appendage slowly evolved to have a nose like other animals. But the privilege of knowing whether elephants are in the process of evolving into new forms or not is not ours. Since alterations in genetic makeup can occur only as each new generation is conceived. It follows that we cannot witness in our own lifetimes the cumulative effect of many generational changes in animals whose longevity is about the same as ours. The consequences of inbreeding or loss of genetic variation in elephants have not been studied in detail. Though the breeding center has a resident bull elephant. Wild bulls are encouraged to approach the females. For many scientists, elephants are fundamental to the environment and they classify them as keystone species or even super keystone species.
This means that the elephant’s role in ecology is so significant it is a key factor in the maintenance and continuity of the ecosystem. According to these views, if the elephant disappears its entire ecosystem may be lost. The great continental blocks of India and Central Asia which first collided about 60 million years ago are still moving, compacting with one another and pushing up the buckle sedimentary rocks of Himalayas still higher. This natural process is measured in years whereas the evolution and possible extinction of species like the Asian Elephant, Bengal tiger, and the one-horned rhino is measured in a few human lifetimes.
The realization that the overuse of our natural resources is largely responsible for this accelerated pace of evolution is dawning on us. In this respect, the wilderness of Nepal is a future waiting to happen.
