The Dudhwa National Park is a national park in the Terai belt of marshy grasslands in northern Uttar Pradesh, India. It stretches over an area of , with a buffer zone of . It is part of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in the Kheri and Lakhimpur districts. The park is located on the Indo-Nepali border in the Lakhimpur Kheri District, and has buffers of reserved forest areas on the northern and southern sides. It represents one of the few remaining protected areas of the diverse and productive Terai ecosystem, supporting many endangered species, obligate species of tall wet grasslands and species of restricted distribution. History Dudhwa became a tiger reserve in 1979. The area was established in 1958 as a wildlife sanctuary for swamp deer. Thanks to the efforts of Billy Arjan Singh the area was notified as a national park in January 1977. In 1987, the park was declared a tiger reserve and brought under the purview of the ‘Project Tiger’. Together with the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary it forms the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. Climate Like most of northern India, Dudhwa has an extreme humid subtropical with dry winters (CWa) type of climate. Summers are hot with temperatures rising up to . During winters from mid-October to mid-March, temperatures hover between . The months of February to April are ideal for visiting the park. Prevalent winds are westerly. The hot wind Loo blows strongly from mid-April up to end of May. Monsoon starting in mid-June and lasting up to September accounts for 90% of the rainfall of . Temperatures range from between a minimum of in winter to a maximum of up to in peak summer. Habitat The area of the park falls within the Upper Gangetic plains and is a vast alluvial plain ranging in altitude from in the farthest southeast to in the extreme north. The park's mosaic of high forest interspersed with grasslands is characteristic of the Terai ecosystems in India and the area is, probably, the last prominent remnant of this type of ecosystem. The forests, especially the sal forests, have always been very dense and can be categorized into northern tropical semi-evergreen forest, northern Indian moist deciduous forest, tropical seasonal swamp forest and northern tropical dry deciduous forest. The main flora comprises sal, asna, shisham, jamun, gular, sehore and bahera. The grasslands comprise about 19% of the park. The wetlands