Keoladeo National Park

The story of Keoladeo National Park

Keoladeo National Park is a national park in Rajasthan, and what you are standing in front of is a former duck-hunting reserve turned internationally protected wetland, famous for the huge numbers of birds that gather here, especially in winter.

The park holds thousands of native, resident and migratory birds, and at least 400 avian species have been noted or observed here. UNESCO describes it as a major wintering area for aquatic birds from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, China and Siberia, and notes that the rare Siberian crane has been recorded in the park. That birdlife is the central reason people come here: this is one of India’s important birdwatching sites, and a place where large numbers of resident breeding birds live alongside seasonal visitors.

The name Keoladeo comes from the temple at the centre of the park, while the older local name Ghana is still used for the site. Sahapedia says Ghana means a dense forest, and it also notes that the wetland began as a natural depression that was later extensively modified and managed. Several earthen bunds divide the park into compartments or blocks, and sluice gates were added at certain points to regulate the water level. That regulated water is one of the park’s defining features: Keoladeo Ghana National Park features a human-made wetland that provides hydration in this drier part of the subcontinent.

The history here is unusually layered. The area was developed into a duck shooting reserve in 1899 by the administrator of the Bharatpur State, and other descriptions place it as a private duck shooting preserve of the Maharaja of Bharatpur since the 1850s. It became the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in 1956, was declared a protected sanctuary in 1971, and was established as Keoladeo National Park on 10 March 1982. It was designated a Ramsar site in October 1981 and made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. UNESCO’s justification calls it a wetland of international importance for migratory waterfowl and a key habitat for nesting birds.

If you look at the park as a landscape rather than just a bird refuge, you can see why it was so useful to people and wildlife alike. The reserve also protects Bharatpur settlements from flash floods and provides pastures for local cattle and livestock. The park is locally known as Ghana, and the landscape is a mosaic of dry grasslands, woodlands, swamps and seasonal wetlands set near the edge of terrain that becomes arid desert.

There was even a conservation effort here aimed at the Siberian crane. Between December 1992 and January 1995, a collaborative project involving the Governments of India and Russia, the International Crane Foundation and the Wild Bird Society of Japan tried to save the species by releasing captive-bred cranes, tracking migratory routes of common cranes, and building up the resident crane population. The project did not produce the hoped-for results, but the survival of introduced cranes in the park left open the possibility of a resident population in future.

Today the park covers 28.73 square kilometre. It is a protected national park and a heritage wetland, and its management has trained rickshaw pullers in bird watching. If you are moving through the site, that is the practical thing to notice: the park is set up for close bird observation, and the water-regulated blocks are what make the habitat work. Look for the temple at the centre that gave the park its name, and for the bunds and gates that made this a managed wetland rather than just a natural marsh.