Kaziranga reopens with tribute to British-era officer
The Hindu
Kaziranga Nat'l Park & Tiger Reserve reopens with tribute to British-era forest officer who rid its name of hunting connotations. UNESCO World Heritage Site offers nature reading, cycling route, boat ride for dolphin watching, trekking, birdwatching & more. 3.1M tourists in 2022-23.
GUWAHATI
The Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve reopened on Sunday with a literary tribute to a British-era forest officer who rid its name of any hunting connotations.
The 1,300 sq. km tiger reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the world’s safest address for the one-horned rhinoceros, opens annually for tourists in October.
The plan for a nature and wildlife-specific library at the Centenary Convention Centre, established in the Kohora area of Kaziranga after it completed 100 years in 2006, could not materialise in 2020 because of COVID-related complications.
Named after Patrick D. Stracey, it was inaugurated on Sunday along with the reopening of the park to put “nature reading” on a par with “nature watching”.
Stracey, who was born in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada, served as an Indian Forest Service officer in Assam. He played a key role in renaming the Kaziranga Game Sanctuary as a wildlife sanctuary in 1950, introduced a course in wildlife preservation, and wrote books such as Elephant Gold, Nagaland Nightmare, and The Authoritative Tigers.
He also established the Assam Forest School, a training institute catering to the northeastern region. It completed 75 years in 2023.
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