Chandoli National Park: Geography and Wildlife

Chandoli National Park is located in the state of Maharashtra. It is massive, spreading across four districts: Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur, and Ratnagiri. The park sits gracefully on the crest of the Sahyadri Range (the northern portion of the Western Ghats).

Chandoli is not just a national park. In 2007, the Indian government combined Chandoli National Park with the neighboring Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary to create the massive Sahyadri Tiger Reserve. This is the only tiger reserve in the western region of Maharashtra, acting as a crucial corridor for tigers migrating up the Western Ghats.

Because the Western Ghats are older than the Himalayas and are recognized globally as one of the eight 'hottest hotspots' of biological diversity in the world, Chandoli National Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012. The park protects dense moist deciduous and semi-evergreen forests, home to leopards, Indian bison (Gaur), sloth bears, and countless endemic species of frogs and plants that exist nowhere else on Earth.

Inside the park lies the Chandoli Dam, built across the Warna River. The massive reservoir created by this dam is the primary water source that sustains the dense wildlife of the park during the dry summer months.