The elusive and stranded adult tiger has shifted its base from Polavaram project canal to the Yeleru reservoir area, setting its foot on the State’s most poached landscape. The last bunch of pug marks were found by the Andhra Pradesh Wildlife authorities in the vicinity of the Yeleru reservoir on Wednesday morning.
Given the unrecorded poaching incidents in the Yeleru reservoir area, the zone is abuzz with wildlife trafficking agents, poachers and groups of local communities who have a history of ‘poisoning’ wildlife, according to the sources who had earlier tracked the wildlife crime in the zone.
Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife-Rajamundry) C. Selvam told The Hindu that the authorities had sighted a few pug marks along the road in the Yeleru reservoir area on Wednesday. The area where the pug marks were sighted was nearly 7 to 8 km from the last sighting along the Polavaram project canal.
The Papikonda National Park, dubbed as safe habitat, is approximately 40 km from the present location where the tiger was believed to be roaming by Wednesday.
The rescue teams were tracking the movements of the tiger, which was directly sighted last time on June 5 along the Polavaram project canal, where it had sensed the trap cages and reportedly changed its route.
On a condition of anonymity, a wildlife expert who had earlier worked in the Yeleru region, told The Hindu; “On Wednesday, the tiger entered the new landscape, in which it will have to battle many threats to its life. Poaching by any stakeholder cannot be ruled out in the present landscape.”
In the Yeleru reservoir zone, there is no mechanism that guarantees continuous monitoring of the wildlife movements. The rescue team has been only tasked with tracking the movements of the tiger. With the absence of any clue on its prey for the past few days, the health of the tiger is a cause of concern at this juncture.
