The Borail Wildlife Sanctuary is located in the North Cachar RF and Borail RF. The sanctuary covers an area of 326.24 sq. km. Its rich vegetation plays a crucial part in providing a perfect ecosystem to this forest. Borail Wildlife Sanctuary is located on a hilly terrain with many streams rivulets and water pits. This forest is located on the highest altitude among all the forests of Assam. Some area of the sanctuary is more than 1500 meters from sea level.
Borail Wildlife Sanctuary is a combination Borail Reserve Forest and North Cachar Reserve Forest, which were together upgraded to Borail Wildlife Sanctuary in June 2004. The Borail Wildlife Sanctuary is under the administrative control of the Southern Assam Forest Circle, Silchar, and consists of Borail Reserve Forest, which is part of the Cachar Forest Division (East Block) and North Cachar Reserve Forest, part of the Karimgunj Forest Division (West Block).
There are major rivers flowing through Borail Wildlife Sanctuary are the Jatinga, Daloo, Kayong, Gumra and Boleswar. The sanctuary is characterized by undulating hills having altitudinal range of less than 30 to more than 1867 meters.
Borail Wildlife Sanctuary comprises of Tropical Moist Evergreen and semi Evergreen Forest. Thick bamboo forest and grassland are also seen in this sanctuary. Due to the ideal climate condition and suitable geographical location, different species of orchids are commonly seen in this forest.
Tree, shrub and lianas species form a thick vegetation of the sanctuary.Forest floor is enriched by many herbaceous species. The main secondary landscape elements are cultivated flatland, extensive bamboo brakes, tree plantations, secondary and disturbed forest, and village garden plantations.
Borail Wildlife Sanctuary houses a variety of animals and birds. Here, one will come across many species of mammals including Chinese pangolin, Flying Fox, Slow Loris, Stump-Tailed Macaque, Rhesus Macaque, Capped langur, Hoolock Gibbon and Himalayan Black Bear among others.
Borail Wildlife Sanctuary is a house of various species of birds too like Lesser Adjutant Stork, White-backed Vulture, Slender-billed Vulture, White cheeked Hill Partridge, Mountain Bamboo partridge, Khaleej Pheasant, Grey Peacock-Pheasant, Rufus necked Hornbill, Wreathed Hornbill, Great Pied Hornbill etc.
The tropical moist evergreen forest with thick Bamboo clusters that make the Borail sanctuary make it both easy and difficult for serious trekkers and casual walker-visitors. But these are interspersed with grasslands, cultivated flatlands as well as tea gardens, all of it in a varied geographical landscape that has a rare geological importance- this region is formed out of coming together of three geological tectonic plates!
The forest has various possibilities of trekking along all its geographical features. Some identified trails exist. Others are in the process of being identified and that is the beauty of the forest; When you are walking in it, you are walking in the footsteps of the original inhabitants and discoverers who walked this path not just thousands of years ago but also just a few hundred years ago to set camp on the hilltop, in an effort to see the illusive stars from the highest point of the region, the ‘Doorbeen Tila’.
Borail Wildlife Sanctuary invites you to join its initiative of identifying trekking routes of various competence level.