One dead, other in captivity: Tiger relocation halted
BHUBANESWAR: India’s first interstate relocation of tigers was suspended on Thursday after the death of a three-year-old tiger who was shifted from Madhya Pradesh to Odisha’s Satkosia tiger reserve in June this year, officials said. The body was found nine days after the other big cat relocated to Satkosia, Sundari, was tranquillised and kept in an enclosure in the reserve.
The National Conservation Authority of India (NTCA) issued an advisory to Odisha and Madhya Pradesh to suspend the relocation, in which six tigers (three male and three female) were to be moved to revive the dwindling tiger population in Satkosia, Odisha’s chief wildlife warden Sandip Tripathi said.
After Mahavir, whose carcass was found on Wednesday, and Sundari, who had been tranquillised in Satkosia, three more of the animals were to be shifted to the reserve from two other national parks in Madhya Pradesh.
“Satkosia did not have sufficient prey base to support big cats and it was clear from Sundari having to move out of the core to look for prey,” said former director of Project Tiger (now NTCA) PK Sen, pointing out that all previous relocation of tigers in India had taken place within a state, two in Rajasthan and one in Madhya Pradesh, in a similar landscape and having an abundant prey base, helping the tigers to adapt.
Anup Nayak, member-secretary of NTCA, said,“Further translocations of tigers to Satkosia have been kept in abeyance for the time being for non-compliance of guidelines.”
Nayak said officials of NTCA and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) will arrive in Odisha on Friday to probe the death of Mahavir.
Experts also said that the relocation took place without a proper ‘adaptability’ study as the
two landscapes – original homes in Madhya Pradesh and the new one in Odisha – were different.
While Satkosia has a hilly landscape with people living inside the reserve, the Madhya Pradesh habitat is grasslands on a plateau without much human interference, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
“Many factors, including adaptability, were not properly examined before the relocation,” said tiger conservationist Ullas Karanth.
Tripathy said the NTCA has put the ~19 crore tiger relocation exercise on hold after the recovery of the carcass of the threeyear-old tiger on Wednesday.
The tiger may have died of a five-day-old wound that became infected. The animal, identified as MB2 and named Mahavir by his handlers in Satkosia, was shifted to the reserve from Madhya Pradesh in June in India’s first tiger translocation exercise.
The carcass was found under a bush 500 metres from the Raigoda area of the reserve in Angul district at 1pm on Wednesday, and officials said initially that he may have died after being caught in a trap set by poachers. Satkosia tiger reserve divisional forest officer P Ramaswamy said the site is inside the Nuagarh reserve forest of the Athgarh division, which has been proposed to be included in the tiger reserve.
“On prima facie investigation of the carcass, a deep-lacerated and five-day-old maggot-infected wound was observed in the dorsal neck region of the tiger which seems to be the cause of the mortality. The monitoring team could track the tiger till 10 am on Wednesday, but at 1pm there was no heartbeat in the radio collaring/satellite tracker,” said Ramaswamy, who has been appointed the investigating officer in the matter. The carcass was incinerated after an autopsy in the afternoon.
Wildlife conservationists expressed surprise at how the tiger’s movement had not been detected despite it having a radio frequency and satellite collar fitted to its neck. Two surveillance teams were supposed to keep a watch on the tiger’s movements, but officials said they did not detect any unusual movements in the last couple of days.