Национальный парк Калесар: заповедная природа Харьяны.

Protected area in Haryana, India

Kalesar National Park and adjacent Kalesar Wildlife Sanctuary ( are protected areas in Kalesar of Yamunanagar district of Haryana state in India, 46 kilometres from Yamunanagar city, from Chandigarh. Kalesar National Park was established in 2003. Kalesar National Park and Kalesar Wildlife Sanctuary are contiguous to Simbalbara National Park in Himachal Pradesh and Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand. Kalesar is a popular destination for leopards, panthers, elephants, red jungle fowl and bird watching. This forested area in the Shivalik foothills is covered primarily with sal with smattering of Semul, Amaltas and Bahera trees as well. Wildlife jeep safaris are available on 3 tracks. However, it is alleged, absence of sufficient funds from the centre is proving to be a hindrance in wildlife conservation in the national park.

Kalesar National Park is named after the Kalesar Mahadev temple located in this national park.

The ancient Kalesar Mahadev temple takes its name from the a corrupted form of Kaleshwar, a moniker of Hindu deity lord Shiva. It is located near NH 907 on the east side and just 400 meter north of Kalesar Dak baglow (rest house) and 8.5 km north of Hathni Kund Barrage. There is also another later era Shiva temple north of Kalesar Mahadev temple. As part of INR1200 crore Morni to Kalesar tourism development plan announced in January 2019, Government of Haryana is developing this temple, along with Kapal Mochan Tirth, Panchmukhi Hanuman temple of Basatiyawala, Sharda Mata Temple of Chotta Trilokpur and Lohgarh fort capital of Banda Singh Bahadur.

This area, excellent for the bird watchers and wildlife enthusiasts, has a 100 year old colonial dak bungalow. In 2016, survey recorded Indian leopard, leopard cat, rusty spotted cat, jungle cat, Indian jackal, Asiatic elephant, chital, sambar, barking deer, goral, nilgai, Indian crested porcupine, small Indian civet, common palm civet, grey langur, rhesus macaque, Indian grey mongoose, boar and Indian hare. Earlier May 2004 survey in collaboration with Wildlife Institute of India found wild boars, sambhars, hares, red junglefowl, porcupine, monkeys, chitals etc.

In 2016, the annual two month animal counting survey done by the Wildlife Institute of India using installed camera, found 19 species of mammalians including 42 Indian leopards.,

Kalesar Wildlife Sanctuary has natural population of the wild elephants. It is also home to the Ch. Surinder Singh Elephant Rehabilitation Centre (ERC) at Ban Santoor, which is a sanctuary to rehabilitate the rescued abused, exploited and sick elephants. In 2015, it had 3 rescued female elephants, namely Erica, Ella and Lilly.

Eight watering holes have been dug up across the forest area to ensure that the wildlife does not stray into human habitats on its fringes in search of drinking water. Earthen dams have also been constructed to conserve rainwater for use of wildlife. Apart from this, there is proposal of Construction of 8 dams within this sanctuary area which is at the stage of Forest and wildlife clearances which is being taken care by Er. Navneet Kumar from Gaya Bihar working in Haryana Irrigation Department. There is a plan to build a fence around the area.

As for the steps taken to ensure protection of wildlife and environment, the forest staff have been given weapons by the state government to tackle the menace posed by poachers. The state had also set up two special environmental courts in Kurukshetra and Faridabad to deal with crimes related to poaching and illicit felling of trees from the area.

The Forests Department, Haryana, with funding provided by the Wildlife Institute of India, installed 80 cameras at 40 locations across the park in December 2014, primarily to monitor the movements of tigers, leopards and other animals in the park, as well as to conduct annual two month long animal species and animal count survey.