Place · wetland national park · India
Keoladeo National Park
The 29-square-kilometre Keoladeo National Park at Bharatpur, Rajasthan, 180 kilometres south of Delhi — the former duck-shooting reserve of the Maharaja of Bharatpur Suraj Mal (1899 construction) converted into a bird sanctuary in 1956 and a national park in 1982. Keoladeo is one of Asia's great waterbird wetlands, with over 370 bird species documented, including the critically endangered Siberian crane (last recorded 2002 — no longer migrates), the sarus crane, dalmatian pelican, greylag goose and twenty duck species. Lord Curzon shot 4,273 birds in a single day here in 1902; the park's shikar logs record over 400,000 kills across the Raj. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985. Water scarcity from the Panchana dam has threatened the wetland since 2000.
- Date
- 1985
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 27.160, 77.520
Connections (1)
- Alternative toSundarbans National Park
Keoladeo is a wetland that was dug and flooded in the 1890s for shooting parties; the Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest on earth. One is a designed habitat that became a World Heritage site and depends on a water allocation from a canal; the other is a deltaic wilderness that is losing islands to the sea. Both are listed under the same natural criteria.
On these journeys
Sources
List of World Heritage Sites in India — Wikipedia
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