Context: The Delhi Forest Department is in the process of procuring electric cycles and golf carts to enable visits to the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary.
About Asola Bhatti sanctuary:
Asola-Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary covering 32.71 km2 area on the Southern Delhi Ridge of Aravalli hill range on Delhi-Haryana border lies in Southern Delhi as well as northern parts of Faridabad and Gurugram districts of Haryana state.
Biodiversity significance of Ridge lies in its merger with Indo-Gangetic plains, as it is the part of the Northern Aravalli leopard wildlife corridor, an important wildlife corridor which starts from the Sariska National Park in Rajasthan, passes through Nuh, Faridabad and Gurugram districts of Haryana and ends at Delhi Ridge.
This protected area contains one of the last surviving remnants of Delhi Ridge hill range and its semi-arid forest habitat and its dependent wildlife.
Once the whole Delhi Ridge was a forested area, but development has destroyed several parts of it.
Historical place around sanctuary are Suraj Kund and Anangpur Dam (both in Haryana), Tughlaqabad Fort and Adilabad ruins (both in Delhi), Chhatarpur Temple (in Delhi).
There are several dozen lakes formed in the abandoned open pit mines in and around the sanctuary. It is contiguous to the seasonal waterfalls in Pali-Dhuaj-Kot villages of Faridabad and the sacred Mangar Bani.
Biodiversity and important species:
There are about 193 species of birds reported from Asola along with large number of medicinal plants, more than 80 species of butterflies, hundreds of other insects, mammals such as leopards, nilgai (blue bull, the largest antelope of the country), blackbuck (fastest land animal surviving in the wild in the country), black-napped hare, Indian crested porcupine, small Indian civet, golden jackal, and jungle cat.
Delhi Ridge is the northernmost extension of one of the oldest mountain systems of the world, Aravalli range, which begin in the state of Gujarat near Great Rann of Kutch.
Biogeographically it represents outlier of Aravalli Mountain Range among protected area in India.
It has a high potential for establishing conservation education and nature interpretation programs.
It is Delhi NCR’s green lung, carbon sink, source of ground water recharge, and shelterbelt against advancing aridity.
Plant species include butea monosperma (dhak or flame of forest), anogeissus (dhok), Wrightia tinctoria (inderjao), Indian elm, neolamarckia cadamba (kadamba), prosopis cineraria (jaand), tinospora cordifolia (giloi), etc.
