Cattle Island
Exists in one of the extreme point of Hirakud Reservoir, a Natural wonder. It is near to Kumarbandh village of Belpahar-Banharpali range which is about 90 kms from Sambalpur town. But if someone travels through a motor lunch from Hirakud dam it is quite nearer about 10 kms in the river. The island is nothing but a sub-merged hill and prior to Hirakud Dam construction, was a developed village. The specialty about the island is the inhabitants, only comprises of cattle group of animals. During the resettlement period, villagers left some of their cows and bulls and when the dam construction is over the cattle settled down on the hill-top. By the passage of time the nearby area filled up with the reservoir water and gave the shape of the hill-top looks like an island. Being away from mankind, the cattle are wild in nature and they never allow themselves to become the prey of human-beings. As they spend whole of their life on the hill filled up with dense forest, their shape and size are quite bigger in comparison to the normal cattle. All are of white colour except a very few. Very swift like other wild animals. People living adjacent to the island sometime try to catch them, but rarely succeed in capturing those animals. We always hear about the cattle as the pet animals, but here is a contradiction, they can be also wild in nature. The responsible factor being the surrounding atmosphere.