Tigress shifted to Bhadra Tiger Reserve

MYSORE: The six-year-old tigress that was captured in Nagarahole
National Park will now have to get used to a new home. For it will be
relocated to the tiger reserve of Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary in
Chikmagalur district.

The decision follows consultation with the experts in wildlife, who
suggested the forest officials to relocate it to some other area far
from its present location. This is to cut down chances of the tiger
coming back to the area and attacking cattle.

A team led by RFO Satish took the tigress, which was nursed at
Sunkadakatte in Nagarhole National Park, to Chikmagalur early Monday. The senior officials of the department contacted the Project Tiger officials and took their consent for its relocation.

Though the Bandipur National Park in Chamarajanagar district was
considered as a possible option it was dropped as it is close to
Nagarhole National Park, its present territory. "The experts told us
there are chances that it will come back again to its territory if it
is let out into close by forested areas. So it was decided to change
its territory, sources told `The Times of India'. However, it does not
face threat from tigers at Bhadra wildlife sanctuary since it is a
tigress and will not overlap the territory, they contended.

The prey-predator base at Bhadra is balanced and so the big cat will
not have problems. If it was a tiger it could have been a problem for
relocation. But there is no such chance here, they added. But a
wildlife activist said it could face problems in its new area which
could again push it back to take easy route to get its feed. There is
a possibility that it could start visiting the villages on the forest
fringes in Western Ghats. But the saving grace is that people in the
Western Ghats are used to threats from wild animals, he stated. Field director (project tiger) B J Hosmath was not available for comments.

Nature Trails India, a brand of Nature Trail Tours India Pvt. Ltd, visit Bhadra National Park on many South India wildlife tours to India. for details please visit our websites http://www.naturetrailsindia.info and http://www.birdwatchingtoursindia.com or email us at enquiries@naturetrailsindia.info or on ntrails@gmail.com

Centre Clears Trans Location of 4 Tigers to Panna

New Delhi : After losing all its tigers to poaching, Panna Tiger Reserve is set to get a second chance. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has cleared a proposal to trans locate two tigers and two tigresses to the reserve. But in a letter to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the MoEF has made it clear that it expects action to be taken after the “Panna disaster”.

The letter, sent by MoEF Minister Jairam Ramesh, calls for “urgent administrative and ecological actions”, saying “responsibility should be fixed on erring officials as pointed out in the SIT report and disciplinary action be taken”. Seeking personal intervention of the CM in Panna, the letter has asked for a follow-up action report and directed that a site-specific security plan be drawn up for Panna. As already reported by The Indian Express, a probe by the SIT, set up by the Centre, found that senior officials ignored all warnings regarding Panna, resulting in the loss of more than 40 tigers to poaching.

“I solicit your personal intervention for early action indicated, to avoid Panna-type disasters,” said the letter, and asked for the phasing out of tourism activities from the core areas of Panna and moving it to buffer areas. “The guidelines and red alerts sent by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) were ignored (in Panna),” the letter points out, citing the SIT observations.

The states ignoring NTCA’s warnings is a common occurrence since wildlife is a concurrent subject. This is now set to end as the Cabinet has okayed bringing the position of NTCA member secretary at par with the Chief Wildlife Warden at the state-level.

“This will strengthen the NTCA’s position,” Ramesh told The Indian Express.

In the past, states have often ignored NTCA advisories on issues like transfer of officials, culling of maneaters and notifying buffer zones for tiger reserves. This had reduced the NTCA to little more than a fund-giving body for the Centrally sponsored Project Tiger scheme.

Madhya Pradesh has been at loggerheads with the NTCA on the Panna issue, declaring that it had enough tigers in the reserve as late as March 2009. However, a Wildlife Institute of India camera trap survey in February showed that tigers had completely vanished from Panna.

The genetic stock of Panna was lost after all its tigers were poached between 2002 and 2009. Currently, the reserve only has two tigresses, translocated to Panna from Kanha and Bandhavgarh after it was learnt that there were no big cats left in the reserve.

The four tigers will now be moved as per a new tiger trans location protocol. The new protocol is a response to a spate of local tiger extinctions in the country, starting with Sariska in Rajasthan in 2005, and now Panna, which necessitates moving tigers from other parts of the country to these reserves.

Nature Trails India, a brand of Nature Trail Tours India Pvt. Ltd, visit Panna National Park on many Central India wildlife tours to India. for details please visit our websites http://www.naturetrailsindia.info and http://www.birdwatchingtoursindia.com or email us at enquiries@naturetrailsindia.info or on ntrails@gmail.com

Sariska Tigers Mate First Litter by Monsoon End

More than four years after the Sariska Tiger Reserve earned worldwide notoriety for having lost its entire tiger population, hopes are high that the reserve will finally have its "own" tigers again.

The three relocated tigers - two females and a male, all of them from Ranthambore - have taken to their new habitat very well and have been mating. Two were recently "caught in the act" by a Wildlife Institute of India researcher and the second tigress - which has been mating with the male since November - according to WII officials, is in the family way.

Tigers have a gestation period of about 100 days and WII experts expect the first litter to arrive before the end of the monsoon.

According to WII (Wildlife Institute of India) research coordinator K Shankar, the two tigresses are aware of each others presence but have not met so far probably because ``they are keen to avoid confrontation.'' While one of them has settled in Bagani - the site of a village which was relocated out of Sariska last year as part of the initiative to make the forest safer for tigers - the other, pregnant female has marked the Sariska-Kalighatti valley as its "territory." It was the Bagani female which was photographed with the tiger. The first tiger was brought to Sariska on June 28, 2008, the second on July 5 and the third on February 25 this year.

Shankar said mating does not necessarily result in pregnancy because tigers have induced ovulation. "The female releases the egg only when she is comfortable enough in her surroundings and feels that she is ready to raise a litter. The Kalighatti female seems to have done so," he said.

Happy as they are at the prospect of the striped beauties returning to Sariska, Shankar said there was hardly any doubt that the tigers would breed. As members of the cat family, tigers are prolific maters. The real challenge, he added, is to save the coming generation from meeting the same fate as their predecessors in the forest.

"Tigers did not die out from Sariska. They were poached. There is an elaborate plan in place now to protect them. There are 100 homeguards and another 100 ex-servicemen who have been recruited. All the older guards have been shifted out of forest duty so that there is an entire staff of young people patrolling the forest. Poaching routes have been identified and the intelligence network has been strengthened," Shankar said.

Nature Trails India, a brand of Nature Trail Tours India Pvt. Ltd, visit Sariska National Park on many Rajasthan wildlife tours to India. for details please visit our websites http://www.naturetrailsindia.info and http://www.birdwatchingtoursindia.com or email us at enquiries@naturetrailsindia.info or on ntrails@gmail.com

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