 The Bandipur National Park is one of the most fascinating wild-life centers, established in 1930's by the Mysore Maharajahs. It was once the Mysore Maharaja’s private hunting park. Later in 1941, it was expanded to adjoin the Rajiv Gandhi National Park (Nagarhole)in the northwest and Kerala's Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in the southwest and Tamil Nadu's Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in the south which now together constitute the Niligiri Biosphere Reserve.
Bandipur lies in the southern state of Karnataka. It stretches along the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border and lies on the Mysore - Ooty highway and covers a forest area of 874.2 square kilometers and 780-1455 m above sea level. The temperature in Bandipur ranges between 10 degrees and 35 degrees centigrade. The park has an average annual rainfall of 1200mm.
In 1973 Bandipur Wildlife Sanctuary was designated as a tiger reserve. It became one of the sanctuaries selected across India for Project Tiger Scheme by the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature. The project is designed to save the tiger and its natural habitat from potential dangers. In 1974, the Bandipur was declared as a National Park under the Wildlife Protection Act.
In Karnataka, the two attractive wildlife parks of Nagarhole and Bandipur, though separate entities, are part of a larger contiguous wildlife reserve that includes the Mudumalai Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu and the Wynad Reserve in Kerala. Both the parks are easily accessible from Mysore. The 874.20 sq. km. Bandipur National Park, which is also a Tiger Reserve, with its open grassy woodland, lies to the south of the Kabini River while Nagarhole, 643.39 sq. km. in area, to the north of the river, has taller and denser forests. A dam on the Kabini and its picturesque reservoir separate the two parks. In the dense moist deciduous forests of this area the upper canopy reaches heights of 30m and valuable hardwoods like teak and rosewood are also to be found here. Bandipur, lying in the shadow of the Western Ghats, is one of the finest habitats of the Asian elephant. Drained by the Moyar River, its open forest makes it easy for visitors to see the elephant and gaur in natural surroundings.
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