Wildlife of
Chhattīsgarh

Primary Threats

• Large-scale coal mining (e.g., Korba belt, Hasdeo-Arand region) and iron ore mining in the south (Bastar/Dantewada region) drive forest diversion, fragmentation of tiger/elephant habitat, increased road density, and chronic disturbance from blasting, haul roads, and worker settlements.
• Expansion/upgrading of highways, rail corridors, transmission lines, and mining logistics routes increases wildlife mortality risk and slices through forest blocks that function as corridors between protected areas (especially for elephants moving between Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand).
• Forest diversion for industry and associated settlements, coupled with gradual edge degradation around villages, reduces effective habitat quality for interior-forest species and narrows corridor bottlenecks in northern and central Chhattisgarh.
• Elephant movement into crop fields and village edges (particularly in northern districts and coal-bearing landscapes) leads to crop loss, property damage, and occasional human fatalities; retaliatory actions and high stress for both people and elephants are recurrent issues.
• Illegal felling and chronic fuelwood extraction around forest fringes degrade canopy structure and understory, reducing prey base and nesting/roosting sites; selective removal of high-value timber also opens forests to further encroachment.
• Opportunistic snaring and subsistence hunting persist in some forested landscapes, impacting small ungulates and ground-dwelling fauna and indirectly affecting predator prey availability; enforcement is challenging in remote areas.
• Targeted poaching for trade-especially Indian pangolin (scales) and occasionally reptiles/birds-continues along inter-state trafficking routes; seizures indicate demand networks that exploit forest-road connectivity.
• High dependence on non-timber forest products (tendu leaves, mahua, sal seeds, medicinal plants) can cause localized depletion and habitat disturbance when harvest is intense or poorly timed, affecting regeneration and food availability for wildlife.
• Dams, barrages, and river regulation on tributaries feeding the Mahanadi and Indravati systems alter flow regimes, reduce sediment transport, and degrade riparian habitats used by otters, turtles, and riverine birdlife.
• Coal ash, mine runoff, and industrial effluents can contaminate streams and reservoirs (notably in industrial belts), affecting aquatic fauna and downstream drinking-water sources; localized fish kills and habitat smothering occur near discharge points.
• Invasives such as Lantana camara proliferate in disturbed sal and mixed forests, forming dense thickets that suppress native regeneration and reduce grass/forb availability for herbivores, thereby influencing prey dynamics for large carnivores.
• Hotter summers, more variable monsoon patterns, and longer dry spells elevate fire frequency/intensity and water stress in deciduous forests, increasing edge mortality and reducing the reliability of seasonal water sources for wildlife.
• High fishing pressure in rivers and reservoirs, sometimes using destructive methods, reduces fish biomass and disrupts aquatic food webs, with knock-on effects for otters, waterbirds, and turtle populations.
• Grazing, frequent forest entry, collection activities, and unmanaged tourism/pilgrimage pressure in some protected areas increase noise and encounter rates, displacing shy species and raising the likelihood of conflict at forest edges.
• Spillover risks from free-ranging dogs and livestock (e.g., canine distemper for wild carnivores; livestock diseases affecting wild ungulates/bovids) are elevated near villages and grazing areas, posing episodic but serious conservation risks.