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A tiger walking through misty sal forest in Dudhwa, the forest floor covered in dry leaves
People · Wildlife · Rivers · A shared past

Stories of the Terai

Understand the landscape before you enter the forest.

Dudhwa is not only a place to look for tigers. It is a landscape with a long and layered past.

Rivers that wandered across the plain, a ruined fort on an old channel of the Sarju, rice-fields and millet at the forest edge, hunting parties on elephants, a forester with a camera, a farmer who became the forest's fiercest advocate, rhinos carried across a subcontinent, and a crocodilian hanging on in a twenty-kilometre stretch of river. Each of these nine stories explains a part of what you see in Dudhwa today.

They are written to be read before a visit, or after one. They draw on nineteenth-century gazetteers, archival catalogues, scientific papers and official records, and they are honest about where the record runs out.

Nine stories, one landscape

Forests, rivers, communities, wildlife, historical events and conservation have all shaped the Terai. Choose a story to read it in full.

  1. KhairigarhThe forgotten history of the Terai A pargana of forest, swamp and rice-land on an abandoned river, with a fort the emperors left behind. The deep history beneath Dudhwa.
  2. Illustration SatiyanaThe tiger, the Raja and the tragedy of 1844 A royal tiger hunt in 1844, the death of Raja Ganga Ram Shah and the sati of Mahishi Rani Sahiba, as remembered in the local tradition of Satiyana.
  3. Illustration The Food of the Old TeraiRivers, fields and forests on the Terai plate Rice from flooded hollows, kodo from dry ground, fish from the Kauriala. What the old records say people grew and ate, and what they leave out.
  4. The Natural History of the TeraiGrasslands, forests, rivers and diversity Sal forest, tall grassland, wetland and river. How the Terai's moving waters build the patchwork that tigers, swamp deer, rhinos and rare grassland birds need.
  5. Illustration F. W. ChampionWatching instead of hunting The forester who photographed wild tigers at night in the 1920s, and a 1916 album that records his brother working in "Dudwa". How watching replaced hunting.
  6. Illustration Tiger-Hunting ExpeditionsShikar, man-eaters and the changing Terai Howdahs, machans and colonial memoirs. The age of shikar in Oudh and the Terai, the people who made it possible, and how hunting gave way to protection.
  7. Billy Arjan SinghA life devoted to Dudhwa The hunter-turned-conservationist of Tiger Haven, his leopards and the tigress Tara, and the long, contested campaign that helped make Dudhwa a national park.
  8. The Return of the RhinocerosA landmark reintroduction From a handful of founders in 1984–85 to a breeding population and the first releases beyond the fence. The long return of the rhino to Dudhwa.
  9. The GharialGuardian of the Terai's rivers A critically endangered fish-eater, the sandbanks of the Girwa and a surprising population downstream. Why the gharial is a measure of a living river.
Explore the living landscape

Where the stories happen

Dudhwa Tiger Reserve joins Dudhwa National Park with Kishanpur and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuaries, within a wider Terai landscape that continues west to Pilibhit and north into Nepal. Select a place on the map or in the list to see the stories connected to it.

Map of protected areas in the Dudhwa landscape Markers at published representative coordinates for Dudhwa National Park, Kishanpur and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuaries, Pilibhit Tiger Reserve and Shuklaphanta National Park in Nepal, on a latitude and longitude grid with a 25 km scale bar. Boundaries and rivers are not drawn. 28.25°N28.50°N28.75°N80.0°E80.5°E81.0°E Dudhwa NP Kishanpur WLS Katarniaghat WLS Pilibhit TR Shuklaphanta NP
Markers show the representative coordinates published for each protected area (sources listed with each place). They are not boundaries, and rivers and the international border are not drawn. Grid: latitude and longitude in degrees.
Dudhwa Tiger Reserve

Dudhwa National Park

The heart of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, notified as a national park in 1977. The UP Eco-Tourism Development Board describes about 490 km² of sal forest, tall grassland and wetland, bounded by the Mohan river to the north and the Suheli to the south, with the Nepal border along its north-west. Its fenced rhino areas and swamp-deer grasslands are central to several of these stories.

Stories connected to this place

Marker position: Wikipedia infobox, "Dudhwa National Park" (28°30.5′N 80°40.8′E).

Dudhwa Tiger Reserve

Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary

A sanctuary of about 227 km² established in 1972 and joined with Dudhwa National Park to form Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. In a 2012–13 survey of the transboundary Terai, Kishanpur recorded the highest tiger density of all the sites studied.

Stories connected to this place

Marker position: Wikipedia infobox, "Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary" (28.4002°N 80.367°E).

Dudhwa Tiger Reserve

Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary

A river sanctuary of about 400 km² on the Girwa and Kauriala, added to Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in 2000. It holds one of the few wild breeding populations of the gharial, below the Girijapuri barrage, and is linked to Nepal's Bardia National Park by the Khata corridor.

Stories connected to this place

Marker position: Wikipedia infobox, "Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary" (28.31°N 81.12°E).

Neighbouring landscape

Pilibhit Tiger Reserve

A separate tiger reserve to the west, designated in 2014 and not part of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. Its Lagga-Bagga block shares tigers with Nepal's Shuklaphanta. Pilibhit is also the place where, by a commonly cited 1878 record, the last rhinoceros in this part of Uttar Pradesh was shot.

Stories connected to this place

Marker position: Centre of the latitude/longitude range given in Wikipedia, "Pilibhit Tiger Reserve" (28.13–28.83°N, 79.88–80.30°E).

Neighbouring landscape

Shuklaphanta National Park (Nepal)

Across the border in Nepal, Shuklaphanta is part of the same transboundary Terai landscape. A Wildlife Institute of India study (2014) found its tigers form one connected population with the Lagga-Bagga block of Pilibhit.

Stories connected to this place

Marker position: Wikipedia infobox, "Shuklaphanta National Park" (28.8402°N 80.229°E).

How these stories are written

Evidence first

History in the Terai is easily turned into legend. These stories separate what is documented from what is remembered, told or argued over.

  • Documented factDrawn from gazetteers, official records, archive catalogues and published books, cited with numbered sources.
  • Scientific findingReported with the study, its dates, place and method. A survey count from one year is never presented as today's population.
  • Tradition and oral historyLabelled as tradition. We name who recorded it and do not present it as established fact.
  • Disputed accountsBoth sides are set out where the record does not settle a question, as with the tigress Tara.
  • What we could not verifyLeft out or clearly qualified. Each story ends with its sources.
  • IllustrationsArtwork is labelled as illustration and never presented as a historical photograph. Photographs are the site's own, taken in the Dudhwa landscape.

From the page to the forest

The landscapes in these stories are the ones our journeys explore: the sal forest and grasslands of Dudhwa and Kishanpur, and the river at Katarniaghat.