Wildlife · 9 min read

Tahr, Tuskers and Shola Forests: The Wildlife of Munnar

Mountain goats on the grasslands, elephants at the river and birds found nowhere else on earth: a field guide to Munnar's wild side.

By GK Global, Adimali, Munnar · Trails & Tales by GK

Munnar sits in the Western Ghats, one of the world's great biodiversity hotspots. Within a single day's drive you can pass from misty montane grassland at over 2,000 m to the dry thorn scrub of the rain shadow. Each has its own wildlife.

A landscape of grass and shola

The natural cover of Munnar's high plateaus is the shola–grassland mosaic: rolling grasslands with dense, stunted evergreen forests (sholas) tucked into the folds of the hills. The grasslands catch rain and mist, and the sholas store it like a sponge and release it slowly into the streams. This is why the high ranges are the source of so many Kerala and Tamil Nadu rivers. Much of what remains is protected in a cluster of reserves: Eravikulam, Anamudi Shola, Pambadum Shola and Mathikettan Shola National Parks, and the Chinnar and Kurinjimala Wildlife Sanctuaries.

The Nilgiri tahr

Munnar's signature animal is the Nilgiri tahr (Nilgiritragus hylocrius), a sure-footed mountain goat found only in the southern Western Ghats and listed as Endangered. Adult males, called "saddlebacks", are dark with a pale patch on the back. Females and young are grey-brown.

At Rajamalai the tahr are used to people and graze close to the road. Please don't feed or touch them: human food makes them sick and dependent.

Elephants

Asian elephants move through the tea estates, reservoirs and forests around Munnar along routes they have used for generations. Mattupetty's lake shore, the Chinnakanal–Anayirangal area and Anakkulam, where herds come to drink mineral-rich water bubbling up in the river, are among the most reliable places to see them.

Living alongside elephants is not always easy. In 2023 a tusker known locally as Arikomban ("rice tusker"), famous for raiding ration shops for rice, was tranquilised in Chinnakanal and moved to the Periyar Tiger Reserve. He later wandered into Tamil Nadu and had to be moved again. Experts point out that the deeper cause of such conflict is the loss and break-up of elephant corridors. More in our environment article.

Other mammals

• Gaur (Indian bison), the world's largest wild cattle, is often seen at forest edges and even on estate roads at dusk.
• Sambar and barking deer live in the sholas and plantations.
• Leopard are present and occasionally seen at night. Tigers pass through more remote areas but are rarely seen.
• Nilgiri langur, a glossy black monkey, and the shy Nilgiri marten are both Western Ghats endemics.
• The colourful Malabar giant squirrel lives in the wetter forests.

Chinnar: the dry side

Cross the hills to Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, declared in 1984, and the forest becomes dry and thorny. This rain-shadow sanctuary shelters the rare grizzled giant squirrel, often seen in trees near the Chinnar check-post, and is known as Kerala's home of the Indian star tortoise. It is also an excellent place for birds of drier country.

Birds and small wonders

Birdwatchers come to Munnar for species found only in the high Western Ghats, such as the Nilgiri pipit of the grasslands, the Nilgiri flycatcher, the striking black-and-orange flycatcher and the shola-dwelling Nilgiri sholakili (white-bellied blue robin). Listen for the human-like whistle of the Malabar whistling thrush along streams.

The smallest stars are the frogs. The resplendent shrub frog (Raorchestes resplendens) has been found only in a tiny area near the summit of Anamudi, one of the most restricted ranges of any amphibian in the world.

The blue flower

Every twelve years the grasslands of Eravikulam turn violet-blue with Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiana), a shrub that flowers all at once and then dies back. The last mass bloom in Eravikulam was in 2018 and the next is expected around 2030. Other colonies, like those around Chokramudi and Mattupetty, bloom on their own cycles. In 2024 the species was assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, mainly because of habitat loss. The Kurinjimala Sanctuary near Kottakamboor was created to protect its habitat.

Night in the forest

After dark, eyes shine in the torchlight: a sambar at the roadside, a civet on a branch, sometimes a gaur herd. A guided night safari is the safest way to experience the forest after dark. Stay with the vehicle, keep your voice low and let the animals set the distance.