Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary

The Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary is in Arunachal Pradesh, located in north east of Anini. It has been named after the Dibang River, a tributary of Brahmaputra River. The Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary lies adjacent to the Mouling National Park, and was declared as one of the major bio-diversity hotspots of the world by UNESCO in 1988. The Eastern part of the Himalayas consists of Eastern Tibet, the Yamana province of South China, Hainan the Northern part of the Indo-China, Burma and northern part of Thailand.

Ranging between the altitude of 1800m and 5000m, the sanctuary is spread across an area of 4149 sq km covering a topology of complex rugged terrain hills which are steep to very steep in altitude. The demographic variation can be spotted in the forms of mountains with snow clad peaks, deep and narrow gorges, dense forests and luxuriant rivers flowing by.

The sanctuary region experiences extreme freezing temperatures in the winter, accompanied by snowfall of nearly 6m to 10m depth. The rainfall, too, is heavy from south west and north east monsoons. Summers are mostly hot and exhausting with temperature ranging between 18 degrees and 30 degrees. On that note, winters are freezing with temperature falling to subzero.

The best season to visit Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary is during the winter season between the months of November and April before the south west monsoon commences from May to October resulting in complete shutdown of all activities. Summer time in the Dibang valley is extremely hot and exhausting, and hence must be avoided for any visit during the months of March to June.July welcomes monsoon season in the Dibang valley and continues till September. Though no tourists are allowed to visit during the monsoons, heavy rainfall makes the sanctuary area look wonderful.

Nature has blessed the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary with its best of flora, fauna and avifauna. The flora is mainly ruled by the vegetation of temperate and alpine type. The two main types of vegetations in this region are temperate broad leaved forest and temperate conifer forest. Alpine vegetation occurs at higher altitude with herbs, stunted trees and dwarf bushes. A stretch of bright colored gregarious flowering can be spotted during the months of May and June for a short time.

Coming to the fauna, it is a pure bliss to witness a huge range of species of the same family existing together in the same place. Rare mammals like Mishmi takin, red goral, two species of musk deer, red panda, Asiatic black bear, tiger and Gongshanmuntjac are among the major attractions of the sanctuary. A flying squirrel, named Mishmi Hills Giant Flying Squirrel is among the latest one to have been discovered and spotted at the edge of this sanctuary.

The avifauna of Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary is equally interesting with around 190 species of birds found in the region. Some of the most widely spotted birds are the rareSclater'sMonal and Blyth's tragopan, along with Japanese Bush Warbler, Temminck?sTragopan, and Rufus Tailed Babbler to name the rarest ones.

The Eastern Himalayan ecosystem houses a number of frog species, almost 45 species of moths, butterflies and numerous insects. Reptiles too are found in abundance with Cobra, Krait, Indian Rock Python and Viper among the most common ones.