Location: Bardia District Map
Area: 968 km²
Royal Bardia National Park is a nature reserve in a Bardia District in Nepal. It covers an area of 968 km². Most of the park, about 70% are covered by thick forests and shrubs. The rest is covered by open savannah, grasslands and Geruwa and Karnali rivers. Royal Bardia National Park contains about 53 species of mammals that includes Asian elephants, gharial crocodiles, One horned rhinoceros, swamp deer, Bengal deer, Gangetic fresh water dolphin and many others. The best time to visit this protected biosphere is from October to February. You can get here by bus from cities of Dhangadi, Mahendranagar and Karnali. Although you should take in consideration that hiring organized tours to this national park will be a better idea. It is safer and they are more aware of the current conditions in the Royal Bardia National Park. Maoist rebels that carry out their intermittent attacks is a real threat in some parts of the park so you should beware of any such activity.
Earlier, kings used to come to Baghora Fant in Bardia to hunt tigers and elephants. In this process, once the king who came for hunting did not find a tiger to hunt, he started to protect that area as the king's hunting area. Later the same area was known as Karnali Conservation Area. Later in 1982 it was renamed as Shahi Bardia Wildlife Sanctuary and in 1984 it again included the area around Babai River. The area was declared as Bardia National Park in 1988.
Bardia National Park has three distinct climates. The weather is dry from Ashwin to Phalgun, during which days are warm and nights are cool. The summer season is from May to June, when the temperature rises to 45 degrees Celsius. In the following months, the heavy rainy season begins. Since the soil here is very soft, it becomes very muddy during the rainy season.
Under the park, there are some sal forests towards the upper part of
the Chure, while most of the lower part of the Terai is covered with sal
forests and there are grasslands in between. There are 56 species of
mammals in this park, including spotted tiger, one-horned rhinoceros,
leopard, donkey, zebra, chital, laguna, rhinoceros and wild elephant.
Among the aquatic animals, crocodiles, alligators, salmons and various
types of fish are found here.
So far 438 migratory and migratory
birds have been recorded in this park. The number of tourists is
increasing every year in this park, which has a lot of potential for
para tourism.