Two highways pass through Bandipur Tiger Reserve. NH-67 (Gundlupet-Ooty Road) and NH-212 (Gundlupet-Sultan Batthery Road) and both those highways experience heavy traffic. The traffic on NH-67 is typically tourist traffic from Karnataka to the hill resort of Ooty, while on NH 212 there is heavy passenger and truck traffic plying to northern Kerala.
Due to speeding vehicles several animals mostly chital, nocturnal animals such as civets, black-naped hare, mouse deer were killed in large numbers. Roadkills shockingly included the illustrated elephant calf in addition to tiger, sambhar and the rare rusty-spotted cat.
Based on the successful implementation of night closure at Mysore-Mananthavadi Road at Nagarahole the forest officers at Bandipur requested a similar night closure on the two highways passing through Bandipur. Based on the recommendation of the forest officer the Deputy Commissioner of Chamrajnagar issued a closure order on 03-06-2009 under the Motor Vehicles Act to close the highways from 9.00 pm to 6.00 am.
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