Park Season, Safari Timings
and entry fee
The park is open daily from 01 October to 30 June, although the management reserves
the option to close earlier if the rains begin before the end of June.
The opening hours are scheduled to accord roughly with the seasonal variations in
the climate, as well as with the length of the day at difference seasons. There
had been always a mid-day break and there used to be two safaris in a day, but since
2006 the park is open for the full day safari as well.
Opening hours are as follows.
Sunriseto Sunrise to Sunset.
In practice “sunrise” and “sunset” are interpreted as “dawn”
and “dusk” with vehicles being admitted at
06:30 a.m.
, for example, if sunrise occurs at
06:50
. The attendants tend to be stricter about exit times, since darkness follows sunset
quite rapidly at this latitude.
As of 2006 the entry fee and regulation are as follows
Park entry fee for Indian Citizens: Rs 25 Per Safari
Park entry fee for Foreigners: Rs 500
Per Safari
Entry fee for children below 5 years of age
is free.
Permissible capacity of vehicles exclusive of driver
and guide is as follows.
Jeep: 5 Persons
Minibus (Canter)- 15 Persons
Photography
Charges:
Still Camera: free
Vedio Camera: Rs 200 Per Safari
Sighting
of Tigers during the safaris.
Sighting of Tigers during the safaris lot of depends on the word-of-mouth reports
from the guides and drivers. The “bush telegraph” is an important source of information
at Kanha, the drivers change their route plans accordingly.
Using your senses to find a tiger.
The tiger hunts primarily by sight and hearing, with the sense of smell as a poor
third in importance. It is a striking coincidence that your eyes and ears are the
best senses to use when you are hunting a tiger with your camera in hand.
Tigers are fond of using roads to patrol their territories or to seek indications
of prey, so seeing a tiger on the road is not uncommon, especially during the early
morning (sunrise +90 minutes) or the late afternoon (sunset – 90 minutes). But the
roads offer little or no cover, which is one of the tiger’s most basis need
Tigers move through deep jungle, long grass, bamboo thickets, or long the edge (called
the “ecotone”) of forest and open meadow. Tigers love the deep gullies or nallahs
made by watercourses, which offer tem cool shade as well as excellent opportunities
for the ambush of an unwary deer. Even when they are nearby, tigers can be silent
and perfectly camouflaged in their surroundings that it is said that for each tiger
you spot in the jungle, five tigers have already sen you. So, if you are not lucky
enough to see a tier ambling down a road or sitting out in the open, how can you
improve your chances of a sighting?
The key to successful tier spotting lies in the jungle’s reactions to the animal’s
movement. When the king of the forest is on the move, his kingdom is as responsive
as the court of any of the great Indian emperors. Peacocks blare, sambar bell, spotted
deer call,langurs explode in cough-like alarms, jungle fowl screech, bison whistle
softly, and barking deer emit the impossibly raucous bark for which they are named.
The continuous repetition of such call, as well as their combination from two or
more species in the same small area of forest, is a very good sign that a tiger
is moving nearby.
Because of Langur’s exceptionally keen sight and their privileged vantage point, langur
alarm calls are especially reliable.
Using your ears to listen to what other animals are saying, then is a good method
of locating a tiger. Too much of concentration
on trying to see a tiger can be frusting; after all, the pattern of the big cat’s
coat has evolved in an almost perfect match with the tawny and dark palette of the
long grass and the dappled light of sal forest and bamboo thicket.
Keep an eye on the chital or spotted dear, by far the most common
large mammal in Kanha. When they sense danger, chital react with a distinctive body
posture. Ceasing to graze, they stand with head up, stok still, with ears erect
and swiveled to sence movement. Like langur in the trees , chital on the ground
often stare in the direction of the perceived threat. As the threat level increases,their
stubby tails go up, so that the white underside functions as a signal flag. Depending
on the terrain and other factors, chital may slowly drift away from the area, or
they may flee with long, rushing leaps.
Sambar behaviour resembles that of chital, but since sambar live in a denser habitat
and move around in smaller parties or are solitary. A sambar may stand stock still
merely because a vehicle is passing, for example. But if the tail is up and the
animal repeatedly strikes the ground with of its forefeet,or if it stares fixedly
at some point inside the forest, it is quite possible that something other than
the vehicle-a nearby tiger or leopard-is the caused for the deer’s alarm.
Observing the behavior of chital and the sambar may thus yield productive clues
to a tiger’s presence. These deer are major items in the tiger’s diet in kanha,
so it is no surprise that their instinct for survival triggers alertness mechanisms,
from which interested humans are sidelines can profit.By far the most evident prominent evidence is furnished by the impressions left
by the pads and toes of a tiger’s feet. These impressions are called pug marks.