What’s up with Desert “National Park”, Rajasthan, India ?

I’ve been to probably a dozen Indian national parks over the years.   In general, they are well run.  Some differences exist in how they are managed, because they are administered regionally, but in general they are quite good.

On a recent trip I visited Blackbuck National Park and it was consistent with this.  You enter the park.  Your guides do paperwork for much longer that you think necessary, then you get into a Mahindra Gypsy jeep and drive in the park.  The animals are generally well protected from poaching, and don’t run when they see the safari vehicle come.   Blackbuck fits this typical pattern.  We had great sightings in Blackbuck of jungle cat, Indian wolf, striped hyena, nilgai, wild boar and of course the namesake blackbuck antelope.

But then we went to so-called “Desert National Park” near Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.   On one hand, it was a success because we saw several of the animals we came there for, including desert cat (aka Asiatic wildcat) and the Indian gazelle and the great Indian bustard.    But on the other hand, I think this this almost a fraud – there does not seem to be a “Desert National Park”, or at least nothing like the other Indian National Parks.     Let me explain.

There are some road signs that say “Desert National Park”, but the only official looking sign at the place says “Desert Wildlife Sanctuary”.   I don’t think it is a National Park in the full sense.    That isn’t just terminology, it is a totally different experience.  The “front gate”, was a small building with one guy in it.   The guide talked to him then we turned around.    We never went into the park, and I soon discovered that’s because there is no “park” – instead there is a protected area surrounded by a very high fence – I would guess 12-15 feet high with barbed wire on the top – it’s like the fence you see around a maximum-security prison in the US.   There was a dirt road that runs along the fence with another fence – not quite as high, on the other side of the road.  So driving around this, you are driving in a narrow strip between two prison fences.    The fences have small mesh so you can’t really take a picture through them.    In a few places, you can drive outside of the 2nd fence and because there was a hill inside the high fence the topography let you get view over the top of the high fence.   But then you would be at least 400 – 600 meters from the animals.   That’s the only way that we saw the great Indian bustard.   Even so, when the birds saw us, even at that distance they immediately started walking away.

In addition to the road that ran along the fence, there was a much larger area that was totally unfenced.   That’s where we spent most of our game drives.   Many Indian National Parks have a “buffer zone” which has some human activity, but this didn’t seem like a buffer zone in any other park.   There were scattered dwellings mostly of shepherds with flocks of sheep.  The sheep were ok with us, but the other animals we saw were terrified.   We couldn’t get closer than say 500 meters from the Indian gazelle – as soon they saw us they ran for their lives.   After this happened for a couple days I said to the guide “they act like they are hunted”, and the guide cheerfully “yes, the local people shoot them”.     When we went looking for the Asiatic wildcat we were in a completely different area that was miles from the so-called park.    During the day the cats were also terrified of us and ran.  Meanwhile at Blackbuck, the jungle cat was out during the day, and paid no attention to us, and we could watch them hunting a couple meters from the road.

The only close photos of the cat came from spotlighting along a road (again, miles from the “park”)  that was heavily used by massively overloaded farm trucks.  The guide told us that they drove at night because they were illegally overloaded.   The trouble was it was a skinny paved road – maybe 1.5 lanes wide, but with two way traffic, most of which were oversized.   The traffic was constantly running with one wheel off the pavement and on the dirt, kicking up clouds of dust.  It was like spotlighting in fog.

We were also at Little Rann of Kutch, which is also a sanctuary – but it is advertised as such.  There are no fences and no facilities.   But, the animals (Indian wild ass, nilgai, desert fox, Bengal fox, and many birds) are not afraid because it actually is a sanctuary.  And you can actually go in it.

So, my working theory is that there is an official Desert Wildlife Sanctuary, but it is an off-limits to visitors and its only protection is the double prison fence system, because they have no anti-poaching budget.   Somehow this got promoted as Desert National Park, including by the official Rajasthan tourist bureau, because that will draw tourists.

I am not saying that one shouldn’t go.   There is wildlife outside the protected zone – including the Asiatic wildcat, desert fox and Bengal fox.   But when you do the experience is nothing like what one has at real Indian national parks.    I am a bit surprised that in all the research I did on the area I never ran across something describing the experience.

I ran this theory past my guides.  The local guides from the area had no experience with other parks – they thought they were all like this.   We also had an Indian guide with us who was familiar with other Indian national parks, but it was his first time here.   He agreed with my theory.

But maybe this is wrong, and maybe there is some more complicated story that explains all of this.

Nathan