BENGALURU: The proposal to declare Male Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve is rapidly moving ahead. If all goes well, then this will be the sixth tiger reserve of the state, after Bandipur, Nagarahole, Bhadra, BRT and Kali. The proposal was discussed at Tuesday’s meeting and the forest department has informed the state government that they had communicated to the National Tiger Conservation Authority to go ahead with the existing identified area.
“The NTCA has sought to include portions of Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary also in its area, but we do not want to be greedy and are keen to go ahead with only what is approved before there are any more objections. Gradually we can add Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary to the MM Hills Tiger Reserve or declare it separately. Either way, MM Hills will be declared as the sixth tiger reserve soon,” a forest official said.
The proposal to declare Mullayanagiri forests as a conservation reserve was approved by the State Board of Wild Life (SBWL). The file will now be placed before the cabinet sub-committee. At the meeting, chaired by Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, and attended by Forest Minister Anand Singh, it was also decided to go ahead with Hiriyur Taluk MLA’s proposal to declare Marikanive and other forest areas as “Uttaragudda Wildlife Sanctuary” of Hiriyur and Hosadurga range of Chitradurga division of Ballari Circle.
The area houses four-horned antelopes, hyena, leopards, bears and reptiles, plants of high commercial value and medicinal plants. Also, the backwaters of Vanivilas Sagar dam have the presence of otters. The SBWL had received a proposal to declare Marikanive State Forest, Lakkihalli Reserve Forest, Yelladakere minor forest and other forest areas comprising a total of 18,925.5 hectares as Uttaragudda Sanctuary.
The SBWL declared Mundagi Lake as “Mundagi Lake and Bird Conservation Reserve” in Sonda village gram panchayat of Sirsi taluk, and Bankapur Block-1 reserve forest in the Gangavati Range of Koppal Division as “Bankapura Wolf Sanctuary”. It has also declared 1180.29 ha area of Irakalgada beat in Koppal Range as “Hiresulekere sloth bear conservation reserve”.
However, the proposal to declare a total area of 4167.94 ha of forest area in the Ramanagara Division of Bangalore Circle as a Bear Sanctuary did not get the nod. A forest official said the reason cited for dropping the proposal was that the area was close to Bengaluru and development was important.