Dachigam National Park

Dachigam lies about 20 km from Srinagar and covers roughly 140 sq km of the Zabarwan range. Its name means ten villages in Kashmiri: in 1910 the Maharaja of Kashmir moved ten villages out to create a hunting reserve, which has since become a protected park. Its forests also serve close to half of the Dal Lake catchment.

The hangul, or Kashmir stag, survives here in its only remaining population, alongside Asiatic black bears, Himalayan brown bears and leopards. Birds include the Himalayan monal, western tragopan, lammergeier, Eurasian eagle owl and Kashmir flycatcher, and blue poppies and edelweiss grow among deodar and pine. Wildlife SOS runs a bear rescue centre here and helps with hangul counts every two years.