A little after 1 p.m. on Thursday, a team of forest officials, scientists and veterinarians brought T-2, a three-year-old tiger from the Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh and introduced it to Odisha’s Satkosia Tiger Reserve, marking the first ever inter-State re-introduction of tigers. T-2, tranquillised and radio collared, was taken from Kanha Tiger Reserve at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday and covered almost 700 km in a day.
“This is the first time in the country’s conservation history that a tiger from any Tiger Reserve has been sent to another State for re-introduction. We hope that this tiger will fulfil the objective of this ambitious project and help establish a good population of tigers at Satkosia,” Sanjay Kumar Shukla, Chief Conservator of Forests and Field Director, Kanha Tiger Reserve, told The Hindu .
A team of over 30 persons, including forest officials from both the Satkosia Tiger Reserve and the Kanha Tiger Reserve, along with scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India and five trained elephants, took active part in the trans-location and re-introduction of the tiger.
Guidelines followed
Mr. Shukla said the guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), where the animal selected for relocation was in its ‘transient age’ and had not set its territory, has been followed in the re-introduction. At the Kanha Tiger Reserve, T-2 had begun looking for its territory and had attacked and killed some tiger cubs.
“Initially, there will be a ‘soft release’ of the tiger, in an enclosure with its natural prey base as a precautionary measure,” Mr. Shukla said. The entire population of Raigoda village, situated in the core area of the Satkosia Tiger Reserve, had been moved out to buffer areas.
“The animal will be closely watched till it gets adapted to the new environment,” Sudarsan Panda, Regional Chief Conservator of Forest, Angul, told The Hindu on Thursday.
( Inputs from Satyasundar Barik )
