Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Northeastern Goa, India in the Ponda taluka of the state. The total area of the park is 8 km2. It is a popular destination for both tourists and schoolchildren. A wide variety of animal life can be encountered, including: Sambar Deer, Indian Bison, Malabar Giant Squirrel, Indian Peafowl and many species of snake.
Bondla provides sanctuary to Leopards who have been injured when they ventured too close to human habitation, and dancing bears and cobras who, along with their trainers, need a new life as the age-old tradition of dancing bears and snake charming is now illegal. The elephants and their handlers are more fortunate: the two at Bondla take turns to give visitors a ride, and on their off day are bathed and laze around.
Another surprise at Bondla are the Hindu carvings. These were discovered when the sanctuary gardens were being constructed. They would have been hidden for protection from the Portuguese Catholic Inquisitors.
Famous quotes containing the words wildlife and/or sanctuary:
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“If the veil were withdrawn from the sanctuary of domestic life, and man could look upon the fear, the loathing, the detestations which his tyranny and reckless gratification of self has caused to take the place of confiding love, which placed a woman in his power, he would shudder at the hideous wrong of the present regulations of the domestic abode.”
—Lydia Jane Pierson, U.S. women’s rights activist and corresponding editor of The Woman’s Advocate. The Woman’s Advocate, represented in The Lily, pp. 117-8 (1855-1858 or 1860)