Aarey Milk Colony

Aarey Milk Colony is within Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). Of which 25.6% (812 acres) are classified as mixed moist deciduous type forest. It acts as a buffer between SGNP and the city, being one of the few green spaces (spread over 2000 acres) left in Mumbai. On 3 September 2020, the Maharashtra government declared one fifth of the Aarey Colony, an area of approximately 600 acres, as a reserved forest.

The Colony is a neighbourhood situated in Goregaon (East), a suburb of the city of Mumbai, India. It was established in 1949 to revolutionize the processing and marketing of dairy products in the city.

The name comes up as ‘Areyn’ in Bombay Government records of 1836, according to which Ardesar Dadaji, a Parsee businessman, had been granted the villages of Malhar, Dysar, Magatney, Tulsi, Areyn, Eksar, Kanari and part of Pahadi in lieu of land in the Fort.

Aarey Colony has an array of wild life and several species of insects, butterflies and birds. It has at least 86 species of trees and 22 species of birds. A recent report submitted to the state highlights the rich biodiversity inside Aarey. There are about 290 species of wild life in Aarey Colony including 5 such species of animals which feature in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These vulnerable animals include leopards, Rusty spotted cat, Sambar deer, Alexandrine Parakeet and Red-wattled Lapwing.

Aarey is known to have potential to show human-leopard co-existence in an urban setting. There are 4 adult females named Adarsh Nagar (after the locality she used to frequent), Bindu, Chandani ( 3 legged leopard) and Luna. The leopards are monitored by camera traps, first set up in 2015. The Forest Department has joined hands with citizen groups to observe and learn about leopard behavior. An RTI has revealed that from 2016 to 2018, seven leopards have been rescued. While Aarey has been infamous for leopard attacks, research by Centre for Wildlife Studies revealed that leopards are actually afraid of humans and highlighted that poor garbage disposal and newly released leopards in a new environment have caused attacks. Vidya Athreya, an ecologist, pointed out that leopards being around was never a big issue among residents of these areas, it is only a recent demand. She also pointed out that this is an urban dwellers' issue as people in rural areas experience less attacks and no death has occurred in Ahemadnagar, for instance, despite having a higher leopard count. A leopard was allegedly carrying away a 4-year-old boy in Aarey Colony, The boy was rescued after alert locals intervened in the nick of time.

Aarey contributes about 90 species of butterflies (including plain tiger, striped tiger, common crow, chocolate pansy, common Mormon), 8 species of reptiles, 12 amphibian species, 77 different avifauna (birdlife) species, and 6 species of venomous snakes. Caecilian, a rare snake-like amphibian, was also discovered in the interiors of Aarey.

2019: a spider was discovered, Jerzego sunillimay. This is the first ever species of the genus Jerzego whose taxonomic details, mating behaviour, and egg development have been documented. It is the fourth species under this genus in the world and second from India.

2017: two species of jumping spiders, Langelurillus onyx and Langelurillus lacteus, were discovered. Published in a journal Zootaxa, claims significance in terms of biogeography as a first for any African genus spider species discovered in Asia