Tigers clicked in the forests of Kabini, Karnataka
| Photo Credit:
Harsha Narasimhamurthy
With sanitised safari jeeps, smaller tour batches and a will to bring wildlife tourism back on track, national parks and sanctuaries across the country are getting back on track as they open the gates to local tourists
When the forest gates opened at Maharashtra’s Tadoba Andhari National Park in October in 2020, after a gap of seven months, Hyderabad-based K Venkateswarlu was one of the first visitors to step inside.
Passionate about wildlife photography, Venkateswarlu has been visiting forests for 13 years. But this time, given the pandemic, his experience of wildlife tourism was expectedly different. “The process of checking into resorts was longer and there were many rules in place. For instance, guests above the age of 55 and children below 10 years were not allowed. At Tadoba, in the initial days, the rooms were not given on a twin-sharing basis even if you had travelled together. And there were far less number of vehicles being allowed into the forest,” says Venkateswarlu.