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Quote:Tigers dispersing from a source population face various problems. In Indian context the source population areas, generally tiger reserves are like islands in a sea of human habitations all around, with fragmented corridors or no corridor at all. The dispersal of tigers, specially the young tigers and ensuing man-animal conflicts initiated by cattle kills sometimes result in death of the tigers or human deaths. In later case the tigers involved are dubbed man-eaters and the local population demand their removal. Many a times the situation takes ugly turns.
Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve(BTR) in Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh is such a typical source population in the Central Indian landscape. It is a small tiger reserve with 448.84 sq km of core and 820.035 sq km of buffer. The buffer is heavily populated with very sparse cover. One female tiger of Khitouli range of the BTR (hereinafter called BKT-1) had established her home range in the Khitouli buffer about 2 years back and the 2 male cubs from the litter have been raised by her in that area for the last 2 years. The prey base density in the home range of BKT-1 is rather poor and the cattle had been mainstay of this family for subsistence. Early this year the BKT-1 started weaning of her young male cubs. The young sub adult tigers started making their kills, sometimes with mother but mostly on their own. They had strong bonding and were seen together almost always. Their food was mostly cattle. These young tigers have been accused by the villagers to be involved in 4 cases of human deaths in 2014 which occurred in Khitouli buffer area. A map of the area showing locations of the 4 incidents is enclosed as figure-1.
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The villagers became agitated after finding the dead body. There was sloganeering against forest dept and the body was not allowed to be removed for post mortem by the people. By evening some 300-400 villagers from Khitouli and nearby villages gathered in Khitouli. The mob attacked the forest campus of Khitouli and set on fire all offices and residential buildings located in these premises using diesel and petrol. All official equipments, furniture, 2 vehicles and 3 motor cycles as well as all personal belongings of the staff were torched totally. There was looting and attempts to burn the staff alive by dousing them in petrol. When the police staff of Khitouli police post tried to intervene they were stoned. 4 police personnel were injured including the in-charge lady sub inspector. Additional
police force reached the site in the night and rounded up 28 rioters. The total loss in the fire is to the tune of about Rs 1.5 crore of government property and Rs 38 lakhs of personal property of the staff. The whole incident appears to be instigated for political reasons and that angle is being investigated.
It was decided to capture the “accused” young tigers and remove them from their present area to prevent possibility of further conflicts and pacify the agitated villagers. The capture operation was carried out on 27.10.2014 morning. Both the young tigers were tranquilized and shifted to an enclosure in the core zone of the BTR where they are being kept in near-wild conditions. The captured tigers are perfectly healthy, weighing about 164 and 159 kgs. They shall be released in suitable areas in the tiger reserves at suitable time. The capture operation of these young tigers was tricky and difficult one. Both the tigers were always moving together, having strong bonding being siblings. It was imperative to capture them together to avoid the risk to rescue parties/ villagers which was very likely in case of capture of only one tiger at a time. Accordingly two separate rescue teams were
arranged, one from Bandhavgarh and another from Panna tiger reserve. Using 7 elephants the tigers were localized in a suitable area near Khitouli village and were darted simultaneously. The further operations went on smoothly and by noon they were released into two separate but adjoining enclosures at Behraha.
Analysis of the incidents shows that human deaths in all the 4 cases were accidental deaths. All the incidents have occurred in forest and not in habitation area. Man was the intruder in the tiger area and not vice versa in all the 4 cases. As there are no other big carnivores in the area, all the deaths can be said to be caused by the tigers. Only one death of 27.05.2014 can be said to be definitely caused by the accused young tigers. The incident of 21.07.2014 was a typical case of mistaken identity. Last incident of

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Quote:Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), Borivli, will nest two eight-year-old female Royal Bengal tigresses in two months.
The big cats were brought to the park on Monday from Pench Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh. The sister cubs, TF1 and TF2, have been kept in captivity at separate 15x10 feet enclosures at SGNP’s lion safari site.
“They need time to adapt to a new environment and are very aggressive upon sighting humans at present,” said range forest officer Shailesh Deore. “They have also travelled for over 60 hours, which they need to recover from.”
He added that the twins’ brother had been taken to Nagpur Zoo earlier.






Weighing about 150-160kg each, the animals were brought to Mumbai by a team of 13 including the SGNP veterinarian, forest officers and animal keepers.
“The animals have travelled a distance of approximately 950km over three days. They have been kept in isolation. They are healthy and are adjusting to their new home,” said SGNP veterinarian Dr Shailesh Pethe. “They need time to get used to their new surroundings. We will take a call on whether to make them part of the Safari.”
The new addition takes SGNP’s tiger count to eight — four female Royal Bengal tigers, three male and one white Albino tiger.
Forest officers said the two cubs had been fed and taken care of by Pench forest officers.
“Pench tiger reserve officers made several attempts to put them out in the wild but they were unable to cope with the surroundings,” said Deore. “Now that they are eight, we decided to bring them to SGNP to help increase its tiger population.

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*This image is copyright of its original author