Above: Meeting with a Tigress - from the back of a Kanha elephant, March 2002. Photos: Amit Kher, GG

Below: Sita, the most celebrated Bandhavgarh Tigress of recent years, later killed by poachers.

SECRET INDIA IS HOME TO NEARLY HALF the Royal Bengal Tigers still thought to be alive in the wild.

Fortunately, the region is also home to no less than 24 Wildlife Parks and Sanctuaries, among them world-famous Kanha and Bandhavgarh and the less known but even more intriguing Pench National Park in Old Gondwana north of Nagpur.

For more on Secret India's protected wildlife areas, go to National Parks & Sanctuaries. On this page you have only to run your cursor over the numbered map for names of the locations and then click for extensive up-to-the-minute details.

Most Parks and Sanctuaries of Central India are now open to visitors between October 1 and June 30. See GreenGondwana Travel News for any updates.

The Tiger is only the best known of species under current threat of extinction. The last three wild Indian cheetah were shot in the former Koriya princely state, now a district of Chattisgarh, in 1948.

Today the pure Wild Buffalo, Chattisgarh's state animal, is struggling for survival in Indravati National Park and Udanti Wildlife Sanctuary, while the state bird, the Bastar Hill Myna, is under threat in the beautiful forests of Kanger Valley National Park.

Visit our Endangered Species page to find out more about about threatened wildlife, and follow our Wildife Links to other sources of local and international information.

For recommended places to stay, visit our Lodges and Resorts page which features the best-run local accommodation with distinctive ecological and naturalist strengths.

For detailed travel information on how best to get around wild Secret India, follow the Links above left to our travel site at GreenGondwana.com.