Saurashtra is Home to The Largest Population of Blackbucks in The Country

If you want to pick a place for experiencing wildlife like never before, a journey through Saurashtra may help quench your wanderlust. From lions to the southwest in the peninsula at Gir, to prancing blackbucks at Velavadar Black Buck Sanctuary and National Park, there’s nothing you won’t find here.

Blackbuck National Park was once the private grassland of the Maharaja of Bhavnagar. Today, it is a beautiful, 34-sq-km park, about an hour’s drive north of Bhavnagar, encompassing areas of pale-coloured grassland stretching between two seasonal rivers. The blackbuck is considered endangered; so is protected from hunting, and this sanctuary is a tiny patch of safe ground for the blackbuck to inhabit.

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You’ll find the beautiful, agile antelopes, sporting elegant spiralling horns as long as 65cm, especially in mature males blackbuck on the northern side of the grassland. Found only in South Asia, the blackbuck once lived all across India, but now the largest population of about 3400 can be found here. The conservation of the blackbuck at this national park in Gujarat has been a big success and the chances of spotting one are very high, especially since the wide open grasslands make it easy to spot these animals leaping high over the grasses. The breeding seasons for the blackbucks are October and February.

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Other animals in the sanctuary include the nilgai (another Indian antelope), jackal, fox, wolf, and jungle cat but the main attraction is the bird life.

Both resident and migratory birds are found in abundance: Pelicans, flamingos, white and painted storks, three kinds of cranes, many birds of prey, and the rare Stolizca’s Bushchat all live here in the wetland, mostly in the southern part of the park. Lesser Florican, one of the 50 rarest birds in the world, also breeds here. In the winter, thousands of harriers arrive from Siberia to spend the cooler months here. Bhavnagar is the nearest airport from the Blackbuck National Park. Mumbai is connected to Bhavnagar through domestic flights.