I just left Melghat Tiger Reserve this morning and am heading to Tadoba Tiger Reserve by road today. The Melghat landscape was stunning, with beautiful undulating hills, though it made seeing animals very challenging. The park claims to have a significant tiger (64) and leopard (154) population, but we can't imagine how, since the small ungulate prey base doesn't seem adequate to support such a large population of cats, and all I can deduce is that there must be more ungulate populations in the core (we were only able to visit the small Tourist Zone). Thankfully there are few incidents of tigers killing humans - only 1 death several years ago. About 25 cattle are killed by leopards and tigers every month, which is comparable to rates in Gir and Panna.
The Forest Department was extremely helpful and assigned a range officer to show us around, as well as provided us access to roads and a tiger cattle kill that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see. The Forest Department Semadoh rest house accommodations in Melghat were excellent. Though “load sharing” prevented us from having a fan during much of the afternoon and early evening, we had electricity all night and morning, enabling us to sleep relatively soundly despite the intense heat. The porches look onto the dry Sipna River, which apparently runs rapidly during the monsoon, and the huts were surrounded by an interpretation centre and museum nested beneath teak trees. The Tourist Zone was only a 10 minute drive from Semadoh and the core would probably be about 20 minutes by car. Though Melghat Tiger Reserve is less commonly known among the system of tiger reserves in India, its well-established infrastructure and kind staff make it one of my favorite protected areas so far.
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