Valmiki Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuaries of Bihar

Bihar protects its wildlife in a thin band of hills and a long line of river wetlands. In the far north-west, where the Himalayan foothills come down to the Gandak, lies Valmiki, the state's only national park and only tiger reserve; in the south, along the Kaimur and Rajgir hills, lie the dry forest sanctuaries; and across the Ganga plain lie the oxbow lakes and dams that fill with migratory birds. Examiners ask for the only ones and the largest ones, the district of each sanctuary and the animal it was made for, so this chapter is best learnt as a table of pairs.

Valmiki, the only national park and tiger reserve

Valmiki lies in West Champaran district on the Indo-Nepal border, in the Terai and the Someshwar and Dun hills, and it is watered by the Gandak with its tributaries the Masan, the Pandai and the Manor. The wildlife sanctuary was notified in 1978, the national park followed in 1989, and in 1990 the area was declared a tiger reserve under Project Tiger, the eighteenth in the country. It covers roughly nine hundred square kilometres of sal forest, bamboo and tall grassland, and it matters out of all proportion to its size because it joins the Chitwan national park of Nepal across the border, so tigers, leopards and rhinos move between the two. Sloth bear, wild dog, hog deer, sambar, barking deer, leopard cat, fishing cat and a long list of birds share the forest with the tiger.

The sanctuaries of Bihar

The river and the dolphin

The Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary was notified in 1991 on a stretch of the Ganga of about fifty kilometres between Sultanganj and Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur district, and it remains the only protected area in India created for the Gangetic dolphin. The dolphin is almost blind and hunts by echo, so it needs deep, slow pools and suffers from dams, fishing nets and noise; it is India's national aquatic animal, and in the lean season the pools of this stretch hold one of the best surviving populations. The same river supports the smooth-coated otter, the gharial and freshwater turtles.

Wetlands, birds and state symbols

• Kabartal, also called Kanwar Jheel, in Begusarai, is one of the largest freshwater oxbow lakes of the region and became the first Ramsar site of Bihar in 2020.
• The Nagi and Nakti dam wetlands in Jamui were added to the Ramsar list in 2024, the state's second and third sites.
• The state animal is the gaur or Indian bison, the state bird the house sparrow, the state tree the peepal and the state flower the marigold.
• The Gandak at Valmikinagar, the Ganga at Bhagalpur and the Kosi flood plains together make Bihar one of the busiest winter stops for migratory waterfowl in the plains.

For the exam, hold on to the difference the Wildlife Protection Act draws: a national park allows no grazing or human use, a sanctuary allows regulated use, a tiger reserve is a core and buffer unit declared for the tiger, and a community reserve is land protected with the help of the village that owns it, which is exactly what Gogabil is.