SAI (Save Animals Initiative) Sanctuary is located in the

Kodagu district Kodagu district () (also known by its former name Coorg) is an administrative List of districts of Karnataka, district in the Karnataka state of India. Before 1956, it was an administratively separate Coorg State at which point it was merged ...

in the

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

. SAI Sanctuary is the only private sanctuary in India. It is spread over an area of 1.2 square km. It is managed by SAI Sanctuary Trust. SAI Sanctuary trust won the Wildlife and Tourism Initiative of the Year Award-2014 for Eco-Tourism that protects forests and wildlife.

History

left, Ms. Pamela Gale Malhotra receiving the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2017 Dr. Anil Kumar Malhotra and Pamela Malhotra who first went to the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...

, were only allowed to buy 12 acres so they came south to start the SAI (Save Animals Initiative) Sanctuary Trust. They bought around 55 acres of unused and abandoned land from the

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

s who were not using it due to excess of rainfall in

. They kept buying lands from farmers who were not using them. The land was used and farmers got money to repay their debts as their land was idle. Gradually the 55 acre forest cover became larger and today covers 300 acres of the land. There were a lot of native trees there. The couple decided to retain those and follow three rules: no chopping down trees, no human interference and no poachers. The wildlife sanctuary started in 1991. After 23 years, they had transformed the 55 acres of barren land they bought in 1991 into a 300-acre sanctuary with a river that is home to fish and snakes, including the

King Cobra The king cobra (''Ophiophagus hannah'') is a species complex of snakes Endemism, endemic to Asia. With an average of and a record length of , it is the world's longest venomous snake and among the heaviest. Under the genus ''Ophiophagus'', i ...

. The huge trees and thick forest helped several birds like the

hornbill Hornbills are birds found in tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Melanesia of the family Bucerotidae. They are characterized by a long, down-curved bill which is frequently brightly coloured and sometimes has a horny casque on the upper ...

find their homes. There are over 300 species of birds that visit this sanctuary. Several cameras are installed across the sanctuary to identify new animals and keep a track on poachers. When the Malhotra couple purchased the land, there were already native species of cardamom and other trees that were planted. They planted more native trees around these. As the tree cover expanded, the animal and bird species increased. The flora includes hundreds of varieties of indigenous trees. The couple grow 10-12 acres of

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

and around 15 acres of

cardamom Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genus (biology), genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indon ...

. They are involved in

organic farming Organic farming, also known as organic agriculture or ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2024 on organic production and labelling of ...

. The sanctuary is off-grid and it runs completely on solar and alternate energy. It is a registered not-for-profit trust which runs on donations which get tax exemptions. As the area is very large it is hard to keep track of the poachers. To counter this, they spread awareness about preserving wildlife and nature in schools and nearby villages. The wildlife on their sanctuary includes

Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies and the nominate tiger subspecies. It ranks among the largest wild cats alive today. It is estimated to have been present in the Indian subcontinent since the Late ...

Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living ''Elephas'' species. It is the largest living land animal in Asia and the second largest living Elephantidae, elephantid in the world. It is char ...

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant cat species in the genus ''Panthera''. It has a pale yellowish to dark golden fur with dark spots grouped in rosettes. Its body is slender and muscular reaching a length of with a ...

s, sambhar and the giant Malabar squirrel. On

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive righ ...

in 2017, she was in

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

where she was awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar by President

Pranab Mukherjee Pranab Kumar Mukherjee ( ; born, 11 December 1935 – 31 August 2020) was an Indian statesman who served as the president of India from 2012 until 2017. He was the first person from West Bengal to hold the post of President of India. In a pol ...

at the

Rashtrapati Bhavan The Rashtrapati Bhavan (, ISO: ''Rāṣṭrapati Bhavana''; ; formerly Viceroy's House (1931–1947) and Government House (1947–1950)) is the official residence of the President of the Republic of India at the western end of Rajpath, Rai ...

References

{{Western Ghats Tourist attractions in Kodagu district Wildlife sanctuaries in Karnataka 1991 establishments in Karnataka Protected areas established in 1991