There are reports in the local and national newspaper that a male tiger – officially known as T 3 has been reported missing from the Ranthambhore national park for over two months. This tiger is the male cub of Machali (Ranthambhore’s best known tigress) from her previous litter. He is about 4 years old and use to be found in the heart of the park between the lakes and a place called Lakkarda.
T 3 was one of the first tigers of Ranthambhore to be radio collared by the Wildlife Institute of India. However, there was some defect in the transmitter in his radio collar and it never really worked properly.
Somewhere in the second half of October he moved of this area and was not seen since then. The Forest guards did try for many days to track him down but had little success. Recently it came out in the newspapers that this tiger is missing. We have no idea why he decided to change his territory.
On the 17th of November 2008 Mr.Aditya had gone for a safari on zone number 5 that goes right across the park. In the early afternoon they spotted a male tiger (without a radio collar) near the Thumka chowki Their guide (Vijay Singh) told that they had seen a young and confident male crossing the forest track and that the male had blood marks on his chest, probably from eating a kill. At that time we were sure that it was not T 3 that they saw because they had seen a tiger without a radio collar.
Mr.Aditya is photographing the tiger from last many years,he has some photos of T3, he got down to match those two images with the other pictures that he have. And guess what it turned out to be T 3 without the collar. he immediately called up the forest authorities and informed them. The Deputy Field Director came over to the shack that we call our office and took a copy of the images. Even he took a long time to believe that this male had somehow managed to get rid of the ugly collar around his neck.
We visit Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve on our many tours. for details please visit our websites http://www.naturetrailsindia.info and http://www.birdwatchingtoursindia.com or email us at ntrails@gmail.com
News Courtesy Mr.Aditya Singh http://www.dickysingh.com
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