Sohagibarwa Wildlife Sanctuary as an Emerging Tiger Habitat and Transboundary Wildlife Corridor

Abstract

Sohagibarwa Wildlife Sanctuary (SWLS) in Maharajganj district, Uttar Pradesh, occupies a strategically important position within the eastern Terai. Official Uttar Pradesh Eco-Tourism information describes a nearly flat protected landscape adjoining the international Indo-Nepal boundary and the Uttar Pradesh–Bihar border, with Sal forest, grasslands, wetlands, rivers and diverse fauna including tiger, leopard, deer, blue bull and wild boar. The case for treating Sohagibarwa as an emerging tiger habitat is strengthened by landscape-genetic evidence from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which detected first-generation tiger migrants between western Sohagibarwa and Valmiki Tiger Reserve and identified source-sink and gene-flow relationships involving Valmiki, eastern Sohagibarwa and western Sohagibarwa. The 2022 national tiger assessment further placed the Valmiki–Sohagibarwa continuum within a larger Indian–Nepalese population block, reporting 939 km² of tiger occupancy on the Indian side with an estimated 54–55 tigers; together with Chitwan and Parsa in Nepal, the block was estimated at 213 tigers. These figures refer to the wider continuum, not to Sohagibarwa alone. This paper therefore avoids treating every part of the sanctuary as a confirmed tiger corridor. Instead, it conceptualises Sohagibarwa as a landscape of habitat, dispersal and potential corridor function that requires current camera-trap, genetic and GIS verification. The study integrates the seven ranges, habitat mosaic, prey-base restoration, wetlands and grasslands, human–wildlife conflict, infrastructure pressure, community participation and low-impact tourism. It proposes a conservation-first framework in which functional movement areas are protected, degraded grasslands and wetlands restored, prey availability monitored, bottlenecks mapped, conflict reduced and conservation information coordinated with Valmiki Tiger Reserve, Bihar and relevant Nepal landscapes.