West India

Gir National Park, in Gujarat's Saurashtra region, is the sole surviving wild home of the Asiatic lion, a subspecies once ranging from the Middle East to eastern India but reduced by hunting to perhaps a few dozen animals in Gir by the early 20th century; sustained protection (originally under the Nawab of Junagadh, later the Gujarat forest department) has brought numbers back to several hundred, making its recovery one of the oldest continuous conservation efforts in India predating independence itself. Periodic proposals to establish a second wild population elsewhere (most often discussed: Kuno in Madhya Pradesh) remain a live policy debate, since a single-location population is considered vulnerable to a single disease outbreak or disaster.

Marine National Park, Gulf of Kutch was India's first Marine National Park, protecting coral reefs, mangroves, and a chain of islands important for nesting seabirds and marine turtles; it shares many of the conservation challenges typical of marine PAs, notably conflict with fishing and port/industrial activity along the Gujarat coast.

Blackbuck National Park, Velavadar, a flat grassland tract in Bhavnagar district, is one of the best places in India to see blackbuck herds and the striped hyena, and also hosts one of the largest congregations of wintering harriers (birds of prey) recorded anywhere in Asia.

Sanjay Gandhi National Park, entirely within Mumbai's municipal limits, is one of the few national parks in the world located inside a major metropolis; besides its resident leopard population (well documented for occasional conflict with the city's edge neighbourhoods), it holds the ancient Kanheri Buddhist rock-cut caves.

Chandoli National Park, in the northern Western Ghats (Sahyadri range) of Maharashtra, links with the Koyna and Radhanagari landscapes to form a larger tiger corridor along the Sahyadris and is part of the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve.

Bandipur and Nagarhole National Parks, both in Karnataka and part of the same Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve landscape that also includes Mudumalai (Tamil Nadu) and Wayanad (Kerala), together form one of the largest contiguous tiger and elephant habitats in South Asia; Bandipur is a former Mysore royal hunting reserve, while Nagarhole (also called Rajiv Gandhi National Park) is known for its dense elephant population along the Kabini backwaters.

Anshi National Park (now merged into Kali Tiger Reserve) protects Western Ghats evergreen and semi-evergreen forest in Uttara Kannada district, notable for a relatively high density of black (melanistic) leopards, a trait more commonly recorded here than in most other Indian forests.

Memory hook (Gujarat's three, this table): "Gir's lion swam to the Marine park at Kutch, then grazed the Blackbuck's grass at Velavadar." Gir → Marine NP, Gulf of Kutch → Blackbuck NP, Velavadar.

Memory hook (Maharashtra's two, this table): "Sanjay Gandhi caught the city train to Chandoli's hills." Sanjay Gandhi NP (inside Mumbai) → Chandoli (Sahyadri corridor).

Memory hook (Karnataka's three, this table): "Bandipur and Nagarhole's tigers prowled the Nilgiris while Anshi's black panther hid in the Kali forest." Bandipur → Nagarhole → Anshi (Kali).

Practice Recall: Before reading on, name Gujarat's three entries in the West India table.

Answer: Gir, Marine National Park (Gulf of Kutch), Blackbuck National Park (Velavadar).