Bannerghatta National Park: Park vs Zoo, the ESZ Dispute and Elephant Corridors
Bannerghatta National Park explained: the 1974 park vs the zoo carved out of it, an eco-sensitive zone cut from 268.96 to 168.84 sq km and its elephant corridors.
Bannerghatta National Park is a dry deciduous forest on the southern edge of Bengaluru in Karnataka, declared a national park in 1974 and spread over 260.51 sq km in the Union environment ministry’s notifications. It’s the northern end of the Mysore Elephant Reserve, and its elephants still walk south-east into Tamil Nadu through a few narrow corridors. That puts a breeding elephant population and one of India’s largest cities on either side of the same boundary, which is why the park keeps turning up in court orders and environment news.
Most people who say they’ve been to Bannerghatta have seen the zoo and the safari buses. Those belong to Bannerghatta Biological Park, a unit carved out of the national park and run by the Zoo Authority of Karnataka since 2002, and the lions and tigers behind its fences are captive. The wild forest, with its elephants and leopards, is the national park around it, under different rules and a different department. This note keeps the two apart, then settles the park’s real area and the fight over the buffer zone around it.
Where Bannerghatta National Park is and what it protects
Bannerghatta sits on the Deccan plateau at the edge of the Eastern Ghats, as a Union environment ministry expert committee described it, with its forest running south from Bengaluru toward the Tamil Nadu border. The biological park, the part most visitors reach, is about 25 km from the Vidhana Soudha by the zoo master plan’s measure. These are the facts worth fixing first.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Location | Southern edge of Bengaluru, in Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru South (formerly Ramanagara) districts; villages in Anekal, Bangalore South and Kanakapura taluks |
| Declared | 1974, over 104.27 sq km (Zoo Authority of Karnataka master plan) |
| Area now | 260.51 sq km, the figure in the MoEFCC notifications of 2016, 2018 and 2020 |
| Legal status | National park under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 |
| Forest | Dry deciduous and scrub forest, with moist deciduous and riverine patches in the valleys |
| Wildlife | A breeding elephant population, with leopard, dhole, gaur, sambar, chital, sloth bear and slender loris |
| Neighbors | Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary to the south and Tamil Nadu’s Thally and Jawalagiri reserved forests beyond; nearly 1,400 sq km of continuous habitat together |
| Eco-sensitive zone | 168.84 sq km, 100 m to 1 km wide, notified on 11 March 2020 |
| Often confused with | Bannerghatta Biological Park: zoo, safaris, butterfly park and rescue center over 731.88 ha |
Bannerghatta is small next to Bandipur or Nagarhole, but it’s the Karnataka park that touches a metropolis; the list of national parks in India shows the rest.
National park or zoo: how Bannerghatta Biological Park differs
They’re two different things on the same hills. The national park is wild forest protected where it stands; the biological park is a zoo complex cut out of one corner of it, where animals are kept and shown. Conservation biology has names for the two jobs: in situ conservation, protecting a species in its own habitat, and ex situ conservation, keeping it alive outside that habitat. Bannerghatta does both side by side, which makes it a clean example of in situ and ex situ conservation.
The split happened in steps, and the dates are easy to mix up:
- 1971: a picnic corner of about 16 ha opens inside the Bannerghatta forest.
- 1974: the forest around it is notified as a national park.
- Late 1970s and 1987: a lion safari and then a tiger safari are added.
- December 2000: a rescue center for animals retired from circuses starts work over 17.50 ha.
- 2002: the zoo, safaris and rescue center are handed to the Zoo Authority of Karnataka and named Bannerghatta Biological Park.
- 5 March 2004: a state notification formally carves the biological park out of the national park.
So 2002 and 2004 are both right. The first is the handover and the second is the legal carve-out. The biological park now covers 731.88 ha, which is about 7.3 sq km, under 3 percent of the national park’s area. It pulls crowds out of all proportion to that size: about 2.12 million visitors in 2024-25 by its own monthly figures, up from about 1.65 million in 2019-20.
A fair comparison is a museum at the gate of a large forest. The forest keeps the real thing in place, and the museum shows specimens so people understand what they’re looking at. The comparison breaks at the fence line. The safaris run through the same deciduous forest as the park, and the biological park’s own safari page says wild animals from the national park are often spotted inside its range.
The newest unit is a leopard safari, opened on 26 June 2024 over 20 ha of deciduous forest with eight leopards. It was touted at the launch as the first in south India and the largest in the country.
Is the butterfly park really India’s first?
The butterfly park carries the best-known claim attached to Bannerghatta. The Hindu reported on the morning of 25 November 2006 that Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal would inaugurate it that day, and called it the country’s first butterfly park. The details from that report:
- 7.5 acres, built around three domes that hold the conservatory and a museum;
- a circular conservatory of 10,000 sq ft under a polycarbonate roof, built to support more than 20 species;
- a grant of Rs 5 crore from the Department of Biotechnology and the state government, with the University of Agricultural Sciences and ATREE as partners.
Why here? The park’s own page gives the reason. Bannerghatta lies between the Eastern and Western Ghats, and butterflies such as the blue tiger and the common crow cross between the two ranges twice a year, passing through. The site was marked as a priority in 2001 for that reason.
The ‘first’ claim is the park’s own description, repeated in the opening-day press, not a certified record. The dates also wobble: the zoo master plan says 2005 and the park’s website says 2007. The dated newspaper report makes November 2006 the safest answer, and ‘described as India’s first’ is the wording to use.
Why Bannerghatta’s area has three different figures
Because the park grew after 1974 and each document froze it at a different moment:
- 104.27 sq km: the park as notified in 1974, in the Zoo Authority of Karnataka’s master plan.
- About 245 sq km: the same master plan’s figure for 2012, after more forest had been added.
- 260.51 sq km: the area in the MoEFCC eco-sensitive zone notifications of 2016, 2018 and 2020.
The safe answer is the latest official figure, 260.51 sq km, with 1974 and 104.27 sq km as the starting point. Neither document explains the step from 245 to 260.51 sq km, so don’t invent a year for it.
The number that trips people up is 268.96 sq km. That isn’t the park at all. It’s the eco-sensitive zone first proposed around the park in 2016. A park of 260.51 sq km with a proposed buffer of 268.96 sq km looks like a typo until you picture the buffer as a ring around the park rather than a slice of it.
The park is an important watershed for the Arkavathi and the Suvarnamukhi, streams that end up in the Cauvery. Its southern side opens onto the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary and, beyond it, the reserved forests of Tamil Nadu, nearly 1,400 sq km of continuous habitat taken together.
The Bannerghatta elephant corridor to Tamil Nadu
Bannerghatta’s elephants don’t live only in Bannerghatta. The notifications call the park the northern terminal of the Mysore Elephant Reserve, one of the elephant reserves of India, and herds move south into Tamil Nadu’s Hosur Forest Division and on to the Cauvery sanctuaries. An elephant corridor is the strip of habitat that lets them make that walk without crossing open farmland or roads. Bannerghatta’s corridors are short, and short corridors are easy to cut.
Project Elephant’s report Elephant Corridors of India 2023 lists three that start in or touch the park:
- Karadikkal-Madeshwara: joins the Karadikkal and Madeshwara state forests inside the park; about 1 km long and 0.5 km wide; a route toward Hosur and the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Thally-Bilikkal: an interstate link to Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary, about 2.5 km by 1 km, used by 100 to 200 elephants.
- Bilikkal-Jawalagiri: joins the park’s Bilikkal state forest to the Jawalagiri reserved forest in the same Tamil Nadu sanctuary, about 1.5 km by 0.7 km, used by around 200 elephants.
A corridor works like a single-lane bridge between two big towns: traffic moves only as well as the bridge allows. The analogy fails in one useful place. Cars queue at a narrow bridge; elephants don’t. When a corridor pinches, a herd turns back or steps into the fields beside it, and that’s where crop raids begin.
The same report lists what is pinching the Karadikkal-Madeshwara corridor:
- stone quarries inside the national park;
- the Anekal-Harohalli state highway and its traffic;
- resorts coming up along the corridor’s southern boundary at Jayapuradoddi.
The forest department’s fix is precise. It wants the corridor notified under law and about 87 acres of private land secured to widen it from 510 m to 1,000 m. The Thally-Bilikkal link has its own weak spot: about 300 m of revenue land along the Dodduru-Belalam road. The national debate is in the current-affairs note on protecting elephant corridors in India.
How Bengaluru’s growth presses on Bannerghatta
The pressure comes from the edges. The core is protected, but the farmland around it is turning into housing layouts and resorts right up to the boundary.
A 2019 study by T.V. Ramachandra and Bharath Setturu of the Indian Institute of Science measured the change across the park and a 5 km ring around it:
- vegetation cover fell from 85.78 percent to 66.37 percent of the area between 1973 and 2015;
- moist deciduous forest fell from 26.1 percent to 13.8 percent;
- the authors’ model projected the urban share rising from 4.49 percent to 9.62 percent by 2027.
Put simply, green cover went from about six-sevenths of the area to about two-thirds in four decades. The study also flagged new layouts inside the park’s buffer in breach of eco-sensitive zone norms.
Human-wildlife conflict is the part people feel. Two dated records show its shape:
- In February 2023, the Karnataka government told its Legislative Council that 41 people had died in animal attacks across the state between April 2022 and 13 February 2023. Elephants caused 22 of those deaths, and 3 were in Bannerghatta.
- In a reply dated 29 October 2025 to the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee, the state reported a rising trend of conflict along the park’s southern and western fringes, mostly crop and property damage, with some deaths.
Leopards add a second strand. At the leopard safari’s launch in June 2024, the forest minister said leopard cubs are often rescued from farm fields around the hills, and the biological park’s rescue center then held 14 leopards. The wider causes and remedies are in the note on human-wildlife conflict.
The Bannerghatta eco-sensitive zone: 268.96 or 168.84 sq km?
The notified figure is 168.84 sq km, fixed on 11 March 2020. The 268.96 sq km figure was the Union environment ministry’s first proposal in 2016, and the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee wants it back.
An eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) is a buffer ring around a protected area in which the Union government regulates land use under Section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Inside the ring, the most damaging activities are banned and others need permission; outside it, only the ordinary rules apply. The general framework is in the note on eco-sensitive zones. Bannerghatta’s zone went through four dated steps:
- 15 June 2016: draft notification S.O. 2116(E) proposes 268.96 sq km, 100 m to 4.5 km wide, covering 77 villages and 17 enclosures.
- 30 October 2018: a re-draft, S.O. 5639(E), replaces it with 168.84 sq km and a width of 100 m to 1 km.
- 20 August 2019: a ministry letter flags the harm a smaller zone would do to elephant corridors and advises reconsidering the original proposal.
- 11 March 2020: final notification S.O. 1036(E) adopts the smaller zone, 168.84 sq km and 100 m to 1 km.
The CEC’s report also records a middle step of 181.57 sq km on the way down. As for why, the state told an MoEFCC expert committee that dense habitation nearby made a wider zone toward the city difficult.
Here’s what the cut means on the ground. Both versions cover the same 77 villages. For 16 of them the zone stays at 100 m. For the other 61, it drops from 4.5 km to 1 km. Take a stone quarry 3 km from the park boundary in one of those 61 villages. Under the 2016 draft it sits inside the zone, where mining and quarrying are banned. Under the 2020 notification it sits outside, and the ESZ ban no longer reaches it. That’s the whole dispute, in one quarry.
Inside the notified zone, the 2020 rules are strict:
- commercial mining, stone quarrying and crushing units are prohibited, new or existing, except digging for local residents’ own homes;
- new polluting industries, new saw mills and brick kilns are not allowed;
- no new hotels or resorts within 1 km of the park boundary, or up to the zone’s outer edge where that is nearer.
The notification also asks the state to prepare a Zonal Master Plan for the zone within two years. The CEC’s objection is to the substance: the zone was cut without any scientific assessment on record, against the ministry’s own 2019 warning, leaving elephant corridors outside.
Bannerghatta National Park today
The park’s own status is settled: a national park under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, with the biological park carved out of it. What’s still moving is the ring around it and the corridors through it. Three developments from 2026 set the current position:
- 5 January 2026: the CEC, in Report No. 01 of 2026 on a plea by K.B. Belliappa and others in the long-running T.N. Godavarman forest case, recommends withdrawing the 2020 notification insofar as it leaves out elephant corridors and fully restoring the 268.96 sq km zone of 2016, with re-notification within six months.
- 29 August 2026: the Karnataka High Court quashes the Karnataka Housing Board’s land acquisition for Suryanagar Phase 4 in Anekal taluk, reported as between 1,938 and 2,204 acres, holding that the project falls in the Bannerghatta eco-sensitive zone and would hurt the Karadikkal-Madeshwara corridor.
- August 2026: Tamil Nadu notifies three elephant corridors in the Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary of its Hosur Forest Division, reported on 30 August. One of them is Billikkal-Jawalagiri, the Tamil Nadu end of the link that starts in Bannerghatta’s Bilikkal forest.
One loose end matters for any answer. In its 29 August ruling, the High Court noted that the Supreme Court had yet to accept or reject the CEC’s report. Until the court acts and the ministry re-notifies, the 2020 notification remains the zone on the books.
How to study Bannerghatta National Park for exams
Bannerghatta sits in three parts of the syllabus:
- GS Paper III environment: protected areas, eco-sensitive zones, elephant corridors and human-wildlife conflict.
- GS Paper I geography: the Deccan plateau, Karnataka’s forests and the Cauvery basin.
- Prelims: statement questions on protected areas and the laws behind them.
Mains tests the theme through the clash between development and ecology, not through the park’s trivia. Mains 2026 GS Paper III asked: “Discuss how the contradiction between ‘rapid infrastructure development’ and ‘disaster-risk reduction’ in ecologically-sensitive areas of India can be managed, with suitable examples.” Bannerghatta answers the development half of that question well: housing layouts and quarries pressing on a buffer that was cut from 268.96 to 168.84 sq km. On the Prelims side, 249 of the 1,403 questions from 2013 to 2026 in the site’s Prelims question bank are tagged Environment, second only to the Indian Economy’s 256.
Revise these until they’re automatic:
- 1974: declared a national park over 104.27 sq km; 260.51 sq km in the current notifications.
- 2002 and 2004: the zoo, safaris and rescue center pass to the Zoo Authority of Karnataka, then are notified as Bannerghatta Biological Park, 731.88 ha.
- 25 November 2006: the butterfly park opens, described as India’s first.
- 15 June 2016: an ESZ of 268.96 sq km is proposed, 100 m to 4.5 km wide.
- 11 March 2020: an ESZ of 168.84 sq km is notified, 100 m to 1 km wide, under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
- Corridors to Tamil Nadu: Karadikkal-Madeshwara, Thally-Bilikkal and Bilikkal-Jawalagiri.
- 5 January 2026: the CEC recommends restoring the 2016 zone.
Three confusions cost marks:
- National park and biological park. The first is wild forest under the forest department; the second is the zoo complex under the Zoo Authority of Karnataka.
- Park area and zone area. 260.51 sq km is the park; 268.96 and 168.84 sq km are the proposed and notified rings around it.
- Two Cauvery sanctuaries. Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary is in Karnataka, south of the park; Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary is in Tamil Nadu’s Hosur division, where the interstate corridors end.
The three Bannerghattas side by side:
| Point | National park | Biological park | Eco-sensitive zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Wild forest protected in place | Zoo, safaris, butterfly park and rescue center | Regulated buffer ring around the park |
| Law | Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 | Recognized and overseen by the Central Zoo Authority | Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 |
| Managed by | Karnataka Forest Department | Zoo Authority of Karnataka | Notified by MoEFCC; the state prepares the Zonal Master Plan |
| Size | 260.51 sq km | 731.88 ha | 168.84 sq km notified; 268.96 sq km proposed |
| Key date | 1974 | 2002 handover, 2004 notification | 11 March 2020 |
Two other parks make good comparisons in an answer. Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a protected forest inside a metropolis, and Bhopal’s Van Vihar National Park is managed along zoo lines. Bannerghatta sits between them: a wild park with a zoo carved out of one corner.
Bannerghatta is worth more than a dot on a map. It shows how a protected area is won or lost at its edges: the core is safe on paper, while the buffer and the corridors around it decide whether elephants can still reach Tamil Nadu. Learn the three figures and the three corridors, and you have a case study that fits most GS Paper III answers on conservation and development.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Bannerghatta National Park the same as Bannerghatta zoo?
No. The zoo and its safaris form Bannerghatta Biological Park, which was handed to the Zoo Authority of Karnataka in 2002 and formally carved out of the national park in 2004. The national park is the wild forest around it, managed by the Karnataka Forest Department, where elephants and leopards live free.
When was Bannerghatta National Park established?
It was declared a national park in 1974, over 104.27 sq km of forest south of Bengaluru. A picnic corner with a few animal enclosures had opened inside the forest in 1971, and that later grew into Bannerghatta Biological Park. The park has since been extended, and official notifications now give its area as 260.51 sq km.
What is the area of Bannerghatta National Park?
The MoEFCC’s eco-sensitive zone notifications of 2016, 2018 and 2020 give the park’s area as 260.51 sq km. It began with 104.27 sq km in 1974, and the Zoo Authority of Karnataka’s master plan put it at about 245 sq km in 2012. Don’t confuse these with 268.96 or 168.84 sq km, which are the proposed and notified eco-sensitive zones around the park.
Why was the Bannerghatta eco-sensitive zone reduced?
The 2016 draft proposed a zone of 268.96 sq km reaching up to 4.5 km from the park, but the final notification of 11 March 2020 set it at 168.84 sq km and 100 m to 1 km. At an MoEFCC expert committee meeting, the state argued that dense habitation around the park made a wider zone difficult. In January 2026 the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee found no scientific assessment behind the cut and recommended restoring the 2016 zone.
Which elephant corridors connect Bannerghatta to Tamil Nadu?
The Elephant Corridors of India 2023 report lists two interstate links, Thally-Bilikkal and Bilikkal-Jawalagiri, which join the park to Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary in the Hosur Forest Division. A third, Karadikkal-Madeshwara, lies inside the park and carries herds toward Hosur. Each is only 1 to 2.5 km long, which is why a single road or quarry can choke one.
Is the Bannerghatta butterfly park the first in India?
The park and The Hindu’s report on its opening day, 25 November 2006, both describe it as India’s first butterfly park. It covers 7.5 acres and has a conservatory built for more than 20 species. The claim is the park’s own description rather than an official record, so write it as ‘described as India’s first’.
Which district is Bannerghatta National Park in?
The park spans Bengaluru Urban district and Bengaluru South district, which was called Ramanagara until May 2025. Its villages fall in the Anekal, Bangalore South and Kanakapura taluks. The biological park, the part most visitors see, is about 25 km from the Vidhana Soudha.
Why does Bannerghatta National Park matter for Bengaluru?
It’s the wild forest at the city’s edge and a watershed for streams that feed the Cauvery. It’s also the northern end of an elephant range that runs into Tamil Nadu. An IISc study found vegetation in and around the park fell from about 86 percent to 66 percent of the area between 1973 and 2015, so how the buffer is drawn decides how much of the city’s pressure reaches the forest.
Practice Questions
Prelims
1. Consider the following statements about Bannerghatta National Park:
1. It was declared a national park in 1974.
2. Its zoo and safaris are managed as Bannerghatta Biological Park by the Zoo Authority of Karnataka.
3. Its final eco-sensitive zone extends up to 4.5 km from the park boundary.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 1 and 2 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: (b) The final notification of 11 March 2020 set the zone at 100 m to 1 km; 4.5 km was the 2016 draft.
2. Eco-sensitive zones around national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in India are notified by:
- (a) the State Government under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972
- (b) the Central Government under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
- (c) the National Tiger Conservation Authority under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972
- (d) the National Green Tribunal under the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010
Answer: (b) The Bannerghatta zone, like others, was notified by the MoEFCC under Section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
3. Consider the following statements:
1. The Karadikkal-Madeshwara elephant corridor lies within Bannerghatta National Park.
2. The Bilikkal-Jawalagiri corridor links Bannerghatta National Park with a wildlife sanctuary in Tamil Nadu.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: (c) Both are listed in Elephant Corridors of India 2023; the second joins the park’s Bilikkal forest to Jawalagiri reserved forest in the Cauvery North Wildlife Sanctuary.
4. Bannerghatta National Park adjoins which protected area on its southern side?
- (a) Bandipur National Park
- (b) Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary
- (c) Nagarhole National Park
- (d) Kudremukh National Park
Answer: (b) The MoEFCC notifications describe the park as bordering the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary in the south.
5. With reference to Bannerghatta Biological Park, consider the following statements:
1. It was carved out of Bannerghatta National Park.
2. It includes a butterfly park that was described at its 2006 opening as India’s first.
3. Its safaris display the national park’s free-ranging wild animals.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 1 and 2 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: (b) The safaris show captive animals in large enclosures, not the national park’s wild population.
Mains
- Achieving sustainable growth with emphasis on environmental protection could come into conflict with poor people’s needs in a country like India – Comment. (15 marks, 250 words) Previous year: Mains 2025, GS Paper I.
- What is an eco-sensitive zone? Examine the reduction of the Bannerghatta eco-sensitive zone between the 2016 draft and the 2020 final notification and its consequences for elephant corridors. (15 marks, 250 words)
- Distinguish between in situ and ex situ conservation with reference to Bannerghatta National Park and Bannerghatta Biological Park. (10 marks, 150 words)
- Why are elephant corridors on the edges of large cities hard to protect? Discuss with reference to the Bannerghatta-Hosur landscape and suggest remedies. (15 marks, 250 words)
- Protected areas close to large cities face pressures that remote parks do not. Discuss with reference to Bannerghatta National Park. (10 marks, 150 words)