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Bigcats News
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A first in world: Rajasthan to get leopard reserves
Rachna Singh | TNN | May 31, 2017, 07.09 AM IST JAIPUR: Jhalana Reserve Forest in Jaipur will spearhead 'Project Leopard', a first of its kind conservation effort in the world to be launched across eight conservation reserves and sanctuaries across Rajasthan. With that the Jhalana reserve will be upgraded with a multi-crore budget including an outer periphery wall and designated as a Leopard Reserve. The blue print of the project is ready with the forest department and would be launched in the first week of October that also happens to be the `Wildlife Week'. Besides that, the project spread across 1,926.80 square km of sanctuaries in the state, aims at mitigating human-leopard conflicts and conserving the leopard population. Conceived on behalf of standing committee on wildlife by Valmik Thapar the project was also CM Vasundhara Raje's 201718 budget announcement. The estimated cost of the project is likely to be Rs 5-8 crore and a Leopard Task Force comprising national and local experts would soon be constituted for the policy execution of Project Leopard. "It is the first effort in the world at conserving leopards by reducing conflict between the animal and the man. The core of our mission is based on the crying need to create a better relationship between man and leopard in Rajasthan and secure leopard population which otherwise could dwindle and eventually die out. This unique scheme will enhance the status of the Leopard and boost wildlife tourism across Rajasthan thereby impacting hugely on local economies," said Valmik Thapar, wildlife specialist. The project Leopard will run in eight sanctuaries; Jaisamand Sanctuary in Udaipur, Bassi Sanctuary in Chittorgarh, Shergarh Sanctuary in Baran, Kumbhalgarh Sanc tuary-Raoli Todgarh Sanctuary (stretched from Ajmer to Udaipur), Mount Abu Sanctuary-Sundamata Conservation Reserve, Jhalana Aamagarh Conservation Reserve, Jaipur, Jawai Conservation Reserve, Pali and Khetri Bansyal Conservation Reserve, Jhunjhunu. As for the funding apart from dovetailing with existing government schemes, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds, cess on near by tourism infrastructure, and funds generated from charging of surcharge entry fee to these areas will be utilized for funding of the project. "The project will enhance the protection of leopards and the habitats they frequent resulting in better natural prey density and less dependence on livestock. In the first five years, aim will be to restore habitats and increase leopard numbers to 1500. By taking appropriate measure, leopards will be prevented from straying into human dominated landscapes and this will in turn minimize the negative impact of blue bull and wild boar populations. Project Leopard will enhance the potential of wildlife tourism and generate revenue for the local communities. This will boost the habitats in the 8 selected sites and motivate the forest and wildlife staff. Van Dhan Yojna will dovetail into this project in order to reduce conflict as this is a primary objective of the Yojna" reads the project proposal.
CHINA’S FIRST NATIONAL PARK, AN EXPERIMENT IN LIVING WITH SNOW LEOPARDS
19 May 2017 / Wang Yan A far-flung locale in Qinghai province will become China’s first official national park. There, Tibetan nomads are long accustomed to living with their snow leopard neighbors. However, tensions between people and the endangered cats persist.
Within two days, it returned to the same settlement twice and killed more sheep. After consulting with a wildlife expert, the local people realized that the animal was an aging cat that probably couldn’t survive without resorting to easy livestock kills and finally sent it to the Quinghai Wildlife Rescue and Breeding Center in Xining, the province’s capital city. It is fairly common for people living in most parts of Qinghai Province’s Sanjiangyuan region to spot snow leopards (Panthera uncia), a generally elusive creature locals have nicknamed “snow mountain hermit.” It is also common for them to lose livestock to the cats, as well as to other carnivores that thrive in Sanjiangyuan’s rugged alpine terrain. Now the Chinese government is working to establish its first national park in the area, Sanjiangyuan National Park. The goal is to protect Sanjiangyuan’s tremendous water resources and rich biodiversity, including the area’s flagship species, the snow leopard. The big cats are subject to persecution in retaliation for livestock kills as well as to poaching. Figuring out how to help humans and snow leopards co-exist will be essential to the new park’s success at protecting the endangered cats. A snow leopard in China’s Sanjiangyuan region. Photo courtesy of Shanshui Conservation Center.  *This image is copyright of its original author Source of three rivers Baima Angzhou, a 61-year-old Tibetan nomad, lives in one of the Sanjiangyuan region’s alpine pastures at about 4,000 meters. Inside his family tent last August, Baima told Mongabay that a diverse range of wildlife frequently wanders near his home. According to Baima, brown bears have visited the family tent a few times when no one was home, destroying the tent and eating some food. “In my memory, wildlife has increased in number in recent decades and it has also become common for us to spot snow leopards,” Baima said. He attributes the change to a reduction in poaching. People here are used to cohabiting with wildlife. On the area’s high elevated pastureland and mountain regions, locals make frequent sightings of blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris), alpine musk deer (Moschus chrysogaster), Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), wild boars, (Sus scrofa), Chinese mountain cats (Felis bieti), red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), and other creatures. Indeed, in an area near where Baima lives, another Tibetan nomad named Luo Zhu told this reporter that most families lose between three and five cattle annually to snow leopards or wolves. Over the past three years, China has been pushing toward establishing a national park system in order to create a more effective kind of protected area than currently exists in the country. As the first of the system’s nine pilot projects, in 2015 the government began work to establish a huge 123,000 square kilometer (nearly 47,500 square mile) national park in the Sanjiangyuan region — an area roughly the size of North Korea. Sanjiangyuan National Park, which will overlap part of the existing Sanjiangyuan National Natural Reserve, is expected to be complete by 2020. Sanjiangyuan means “source of three rivers,” referring to the area’s status as the headwaters of the powerful Yellow, Yangtze, and Mekong rivers. Fifteen percent of the Mekong’s water discharge, 25 percent of the Yangtze’s, and 49 percent of the Yellow’s originate here. In addition to its unique topography and rich water resources, the region is also famous for its well-preserved flora and fauna. The national park is home to 760 vascular plant species, 59 bird species, 15 fish species, and 125 wild mammal species. Most of these are unique to the broader Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Eight mammal species that live in the region are listed as China’s first class national protected animals, a designation that confers the highest level of protection: snow leopard, Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii), wild yak (Bos mutus), Tibetan wild ass (Equus kiang), white-lipped deer, alpine musk deer, argali (Ovis ammon), and leopard (Panthera pardus). Thanks to its remoteness and sparse population, as well as the Buddhism-dominated local culture, Sanjiangyuan National Park and the surrounding region have been able to maintain a fairly intact ecosystem. That is why the endangered snow leopard remains a frequent visitor to human settlements in the area. In 2016, infrared cameras on the upper stream region of the Mekong (called the Lancang in China) within the national park captured the world’s first footage of wild snow leopards mating. The videos showed that there is a healthy breeding population in the region, Lü Zhi, a conservation biologist at Peking University and founder of the wildlife conservation NGO Shanshui Conservation Center (SCC), told Chinese media in April 2016. According to SCC estimates, roughly 1,000 to 1,500 snow leopards live in the Sanjiangyuan region. Rugged mountains in the Sangjiangyuan region, a favorite habitat of the snow leopard. Photo by Wang Yan for Mongabay.  *This image is copyright of its original author A new model for China For the majority of Tibetans, spotting a snow leopard is a blessing. The animal is even regarded as a sacred creature by Buddhists. To capitalize on this reverence for snow leopards and wildlife in general, Sanjiangyuan National Park is expected to employ a conservation model that enlists public participation in conservation activities and scientific research. “Appointed rangers are responsible for tending the pastureland, wetland area, anti-poaching, camera trap installation, environmental monitoring, and litter removal within the national park area,” Sanjiangyuan National Park official Tsedan Druk told this reporter for a story published in NewsChina last December. “This will directly benefit locals by increasing their family income by a significant amount for a local household with average income in the region,” Tsedan said. Part of the idea is to eliminate the need for poorer households to resort to poaching to make a living. China boasts about 10,000 protected areas and compared with other nations has a high proportion of its land territory — up to 18 percent — categorized as protected. But it lacks a unified system to regulate and safeguard these regions. Fragmented management and insufficient funding are threatening most protected areas’ conservation efforts. Sanjiangyuan National Park is intended to be different. According to its latest draft management plan, presented in March 2017, the park has formed a new kind of integrated management system, with personnel separated from all other government departments. This represents a stark contrast with China’s existing system of protected areas. In Tsedan’s opinion, this will enable more effective management and ecological protection of the park and its vicinity. Remaining threat The snow leopard, listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, inhabits the alpine zone of Central Asia, with its main habitat in the Altai, Tian Shan, Kun Lun, Pamir, Hindu Kush, Karakorum, and Himalayan ranges. There are about 2 million square kilometers (770,000 square miles) of suitable snow leopard habitat. Researchers estimate the total snow leopard population throughout its 13-country range at between 4,000 and 6,600 animals. About 60 percent of the population lives in China, particularly in the heart of the Tibetan Plateau and on the northern slope of the Himalayas. However, snow leopard expert George Schaller of the New-York based NGOs Panthera and Wildlife Conservation Society writes in his 2016 book Snow Leopards, “such nebulous estimates are not surprising because many mountain ranges have been sampled at only a site or two, and no long-term monitoring of populations, lasting a decade or more, has been done to measure such dynamics as their birth and death rates.” Between the 1950s and the 1980s, snow leopards suffered from severe poaching for their skin and bones. In 1989, China enacted its first ever Wildlife Protection Law, which categorized the snow leopard as a first class national level protected animal. Under the new law, local governments across the country began confiscating rifles, which contained the illegal poaching of the snow leopard and other wildlife. Around the same time the government began establishing protected areas that include parts of the snow leopard’s range, such as Xinjiang Tumur Peak National Natural Reserve (established in 1985), Gansu Qilianshan National Natural Reserve (1987), Chang Tang National Natural Reserve in Tibet (1993), and Qinghai Sanjiangyuan National Natural Reserve (2000). According to an October 2016 report titled An Ounce of Prevention: Snow leopard crime revisited from the UK-based NGO TRAFFIC, despite the fact that “hundreds of the endangered big cats are being killed illegally each year across their range in Asia’s high mountains,” the protection of the species in China is improving, and “the number of snow leopard skins seen openly for sale in markets by researchers has fallen markedly, particularly in China.” Song Dazhao from the NGO Chinese Felid Conversation Alliance told Mongabay that compared with the other three wild big cat species in China — Amur tiger (Panthera tigris ssp. altaica), leopard, and clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), the snow leopard is the most abundant and enjoys the best living conditions with the fewest human and natural threats. Over the past 60 years habitat loss and poaching have pushed the other three cat species toward extirpation in China. Snow leopards, on the other hand, have avoided these threats due to their unique habitat in the country’s sparsely populated hinterlands. Schaller writes of snow leopards “the cat needs landscapes, parts of which consist of protected core areas for all species, and the rest devoted to achieving a measure of ecological harmony between habitat, wildlife, and communities with their livestock.” The Sanjiangyuan region is a strong example of this landscape approach. However, with climate change, considerable snow leopard habitat may be lost because of an upward shift in the tree line and concomitant loss of the alpine zone. In addition, illegal poaching, particularly retaliatory and non-targeted poaching, continues to threaten local snow leopard populations in China. According to domestic public media reports, in January 2017 alone, three snow leopards were found in hunters’ traps in Qinghai. A 2014 article in the journal Biological Conservation found via household interviews that 11 snow leopards were killed each year in the Sanjiangyuan region alone, a number equivalent to about 1.2 percent of the estimated snow leopard population there. Wang Peng, a wildlife film director who recently showed a cut of his new film Saving Snow Leopards at the New York WILD Film Festival in Shanghai, told the Chinese news outlet The Paper that on several occasions he witnessed snow leopards being trapped by Tibetan nomads in retaliation for killing livestock. According to Wang, he has spent over 14,000 Yuan ($20,300) to save five snow leopards from Tibetan nomads in the Sanjiangyuan region and elsewhere. The number of livestock in the region is increasing, and people have begun herding them in even the most remote areas on the plateau. This has encroached on habitat for wild ungulates, resulting in a shortage of prey for snow leopards. “The biggest challenge facing snow leopards currently is its shrinking territory and reduced food resources caused by overgrazing,” Wang told The Paper. A snow leopard preys on a yak in March 2016. Photo courtesy of Shanshui Conservation Center.  *This image is copyright of its original author Conflict resolution Herders in Sanjiangyuan National Park whom Mongabay interviewed last August all said they had lost livestock to snow leopards and other large carnivores. Carnivores can indeed impose significant costs on residents of Sanjiangyuan National Park, where pastoralism is the dominant livelihood. One study indicated that wolves (Canis lupus), lynx (Lynx lynx), and snow leopards are the major livestock predators in most parts of the region. However, only sporadic studies on human-snow leopard conflicts have been conducted inside China, so not much is known about how many livestock the cats kill. Even so it was clear the government needed to step in to ease tensions for the sake of both people and snow leopards in the new park. In 2016, the local government of Zaduo, a county in the upper reaches of the Mekong River, and SCC, the conservation organization, jointly set up a human-carnivore conflict insurance fund. They chose Niandu village inside Sanjiangyuan National Park as a pilot project for the fund. According to Zhao Xiang from SCC, herders, the local government, and SCC jointly invest in the fund. Each household can choose to pay an annual insurance fee of three Yuan ($0.43) per yak, which amounts to an annual contribution of 25,652 Yuan ($3,719) from the village as a whole. The village elected representatives to serve as auditors for evaluating claims of livestock losses to carnivores. Zhao told Mongabay that the self-governed compensation fund effectively avoids herders making false allegations. He also said the fund is helping herders avoid losses to carnivores. “According to our study, the period from December to April is normally the peak time for snow leopards preying on livestock. So we recommend that all herders enhance their supervision of their cattle during this particular time of the year,” Zhao said, adding, “positive changes are evident so far.” Statistics indicate that while Niandu village lost 300 yaks in 2015 and more than 100 yaks in 2016, from January to April of this year only 17 compensation claims were made. At the same time, long-term infrared cameras monitoring wildlife in a roughly 2,000-square-kilometer (770-square-mile) area surrounding Niandu showed that during the past three years the local snow leopard population has held steady at 13 or more individuals. The success of the human-carnivore conflict insurance fund in Niandu led Sanjiangyuan National Park’s management bureau to expand the program to other communities inside the park. The bureau recently distributed 300,000 Yuan ($43,500) to start insurance funds in other areas. “The significance of the pilot program of the human carnivore conflict fund in Niandu, in my eyes, is more than pure compensation,” Zhao said. “It is rather an achievement by local indigenous people’s participation and the extension of their own traditional culture.” “From this, we as researchers can also draw inspiration on how to help humans and wildlife peacefully coexist,” he said. A snow leopard in the Sanjiangyuan region of China’s Qinghai province, captured by camera trap. Photo courtesy of Shanshui Nature Center.  *This image is copyright of its original author
Parliamentary panel pitches for ‘Project Lion’
The central government must take up the conservation of endangered Asiatic lions on the lines of Project Tiger. This is an important recommendation that the 31-member Parliamentary committee that visited Girforest on January 17 has made in its report. The committee headed by Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury has strongly pitched for a 'statutory support' to strengthen lion conservation efforts. "The committee is of the view that the Asiatic lion is still endangered on account of its low population. A mechanism is already in place for providing statutory support for protecting tigers and elephants. In view of the decreasing number of the lions, the committee recommends that the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change must take necessary steps for providing statutory support for strengthening lion conservation and, on the lines of Project Tiger and Project Elephant, come up with a 'Project Lion' to protect lions and their habitat," the committee's report stated. The committee had held discussion with NGOs, civil society organizations, state forest department and the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change on the issues relating to Gir forest. The panel has also expressed apprehension about shifting of some extra lions from Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh and lauded the state forest department's conservation efforts. "The committee was informed by the state forest department that the Gir ecosystem can take legitimate pride in saving critically endangered Asiatic lion from the threshold of extinction at the beginning of the twentieth century by affording it a relatively safe habitat. With timely and prompt conservation efforts made by the Gujarat forest department, the Asiatic lion population increased and dispersed to other areas also and formed different distant populations in the landscape. The most important aspect of the Gir Protected Area is that it has become a very stable ecosystem with tremendous regenerating, self-supporting and self-sustaining capability due to its rich and diverse flora and fauna and intensive protection and management by the forest department. Along with lion, this region also supports many other rare and threatened flora and fauna," the report stated. According to the latest lion census, there are 523 Asiatic lions spread over four districts of Saurashtra which include Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar and Gir-Somnath. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/parl-panel-pitches-for-project-lion/articleshow/58482822.cms
Two great success stories of tiger releases from Siberia
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/ne...-the-wild/  (06-11-2017, 09:02 AM)Apollo Wrote: Two great success stories of tiger releases from Siberia Great News 
In Sariska, tiger pushes son out of reserve’s core area
Rising tiger population may be triggering territorial disputes in the Sariska tiger reserve. In the latest turf war, a tiger has pushed its son out of the reserve’s core area. It’s a turf war in the Sariska tiger reserve. Twelve years ago, poachers had wiped Sariska clean of the big cats. Now, a total of 14 tigers mean that the national park with an overall area of about 800 sq km and a core area of approximately 500 sq km may be turning into a bit of a squeeze for the striped cats. In the latest territorial fight in Sariska, tiger ST-6 has made sure that his son ST-13 has not entered his territory for the last eight months. ST-6, which dominates the core area of the reserve, had in November pushed out ST-6, which is moving in the buffer area in the Rajgarh forests. Officials of the tiger reserve, wildlife institute of India and Jaipur zoo have made several attempts to tranquilize ST-13 and bring him back into the core area but have been unsuccessful. “We are constantly monitoring the tiger, who is in no danger and comfortable in getting prey in territorial division of Alwar. We tried to capture but failed as his movement downhill is usually at midnight. We have laid camera traps and a team of forest staff is on the task,” deputy conservator of Forest (Sariska) Balaji Kari told HT. He said efforts are on to tranquillize and install radio collar for effective monitoring. Post-2005, Sariska was repopulated with tigers from Ranthambore. Read more: Another Sariska tiger gets radio collar Eight tigers were translocated from Sawai Madhopur reserve to Sariska between 2008 and 2012. One of these was poisoned in 2010. Tigress ST-2, ST-9 and ST-10 have given birth to seven cubs between 2012 and 2017. A senior official in forest department on anonymity said, “A day before ST-13 ran away in November 2016, he was spotted with ST-6 in the Tehla area. We assume that they had a fight, and ST-13, born to ST-2, was pushed to the periphery.” A tiger normally demarcates 10-12 square km as his or her territory and does not allow a rival to enter. And when one enters, there is a fight for dominance with the stronger one retaining the region and the weaker pushed to the periphery. Territorial pressure is a usual phenomenon in the wild. Between 2002 and 2013, six tigers migrated out of Ranthambore to different areas, including Kuno Palpur in Madhya Pradesh, and only one of them returned. Three of them were found dead and two did not return. In the recent past, four tigers have moved to Kailadevi, a new green home for Ranthambore’s animals. http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news...k1n0J.html
Move to protect the Sunda clouded leopard
Monday, 12 June 2017 BY STEPHANIE LEE A Sunda clouded leopard seen at the Crocker Range National Park near Keningau, Sabah.  *This image is copyright of its original author KOTA KINABALU: The Sunda clouded leopard will be the next endangered animal to come under protection in Sabah. This will hopefully be made possible after local and international scientists, government agencies and industry players come together in a three-day workshop on how to protect the species. The workshop, from today to Wednesday, organised by the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) and Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD), expects to see recommendations based on findings of a five-year extensive research on Sunda clouded leopards conducted by DGFC and SWD. DGFC director Dr Benoit Goossens said they expect to have a Sunda Clouded Leopard Action Plan for Sabah drafted based on the recommendations. “We hope the state government will adopt the action plan to save the species, which is threatened by habitat loss and forest fragmentation in Sabah,” he said in a statement. Dr Goossens said the centre, SWD and collaborators from Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), University of Montana and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research have collected crucial information on Sunda clouded leopard population in Sabah including demography, behaviour, landscape ecology and genetics for the past 10 years. “During this project, we carried out surveys using camera traps in several protected areas such as Crocker Range, Tawau Hills Park, Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Kinabatangan, Malua, Ulu Segama, and Maliau Basin,” he said. Safe and sound: A female Sunda clouded leopard named ‘Rahsia’ rescued during the project.  *This image is copyright of its original author The population is estimated to be around 700 in Sabah. Dr Goossens said these projects and efforts were made possible with the support from Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD) since April 2011, with a total commitment of RM3.96mil over six years, to conduct research on three species – Proboscis monkey, Sunda clouded leopard and the Bornean banteng. Four months ago, DGFC and SWD organised a workshop and conference on the conservation of the Proboscis monkey, which saw recommendations for drafting of a state action plan to conserve the endangered species. YSD chairman Tun Musa Hitam said it was crucial for the state action plan to be adopted and implemented by the Sabah government as it is backed by scientific research and expert opinions as well as input from industry leaders. “We must act immediately and effectively to stop further decline in the population or risk losing a precious species that is vital to the ecosystem it inhabits. “We have already lost one of our last three Sumatran rhinoceroses, a species on the brink of extinction. Let us learn from this,” he added. 
Mukundara Hills reserve may get tiger couple by December
Rachna Singh| TNN | Updated: Jun 9, 2017, 06.41 AM IST  *This image is copyright of its original author A village volunteer camera trap revealed a picture of tigress T-79 with a cub in Bhaironpur, Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary, RTR
JAIPUR: The Mukundara Hills Tiger Reserve(MHTR), the third biggest cat habitat notified by the Rajasthan government in 2013, has so far had no tigers. This is going to change by this year-end. With the tiger population on a constant boom in the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve(RTR), the state government is gearing up to relocate a tiger couple to Mukundara by December 2017.A day ago, a village volunteer camera trap revealed a picture of tigress T79 with a cub in Bhaironpur, Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary, RTR. While there is only one cub in the picture, forest officials expect the number to be more. T79, daughter of T13, is a first-time mother and officials feel T42, a dominant male in the area, could be the father. A few days back, another tigress T69 was spotted for the first time with cubs in the Thumka area of RTR. With this, the tiger population in RTR has crossed 60. "There are a total of 16-17 cubs now in RTR and the number could be more," said Y K Sahu, CCF, wildlife and field director, Ranthambhore.  *This image is copyright of its original author Located mostly in Rajasthan's Hadoti region, the reserve was expected to ease the big cat population pressure in Ranthambhore, and covers the existing Darrah, Jawahar Sagar and Chambal wildlife sanctuaries. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) already recognizes MHTR as an extension of the core area of the RTR. Currently, the reserve does not have tiger population of its own but serves as a natural extension to RTR. The Mukundara reserve spreads across four districts-Kota, Bundi, Chittorgarh and Jhalawar- covering an area of 759 sq km. It boasts of a core area of 417 sq km and a buffer zone covering 342.82 sq km. "There is a demand for shifting tigers to Mukundra and we hope to shift them this year. Officially, we also have permission to shift one male tiger to Sariska. RTR has a healthy number of tigers that are not necessarily dispersing but naturally straying out, something that we don't want to happen," said G V Reddy, CWLW. The MHTR, however, is quite ready to receive tigers and has a fairly good prey base that can be further improved, he said. 
Assam’s Orang may replace Kaziranga as park with highest tiger density
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/assam-s-orang-may-replace-kaziranga-as-park-with-highest-tiger-density/story-qNcpdcNVpDaf7gPbPNv1gO.html
Mohd Usman
There was a serious fight between two tigers in this range on 15th June near the high bank and it seems this must be one of the tigers from that fight! They clashed 3 times as I missed the fight but the visitors who saw the fight had told me as I was also exiting the park!! Therefore a very natural case of territorial fight in the jungle between two adult male tigers! In Corbet
There's a disturbing rumor that the Durga females 3 sub adult Cubs have been poached via poisoning. These are the Tigers I photographed in Pench, I'm really hoping it's just a rumor. I'll let you know what I hear.
Update: It wasn't the Durga female 3 sub adults but another 3 sub adults from the Sillari Area in Pench, it's a huge loss. These 3 were said to be around the same age, very sad news indeed. They were poached, not poisoned.
Four persons were arrested when they chased a lion cub in a car at Gir National park.
They took a video of their chasing actions and shared it in the social media, which led to their arrest. Read the full story in the link below. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/...256839.cms  (06-27-2017, 06:57 PM)Pckts Wrote: There's a disturbing rumor that the Durga females 3 sub adult Cubs have been poached via poisoning. These are the Tigers I photographed in Pench, I'm really hoping it's just a rumor. I'll let you know what I hear. a family getting poached like that in the tourism zone of Pench, Mahrashtra. that is shocking and disturbing at the same time. looks like Samrat lost his mate and the kids. RIP.
67 tiger deaths reported in first half of 2017
Click the link below for the full article. http://www.livemint.com/Politics/q7qUXF2...-2017.html
Tiger kills two cubs in Tadoba reserve in Maharashtra
http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-new...DGFaL.html A male tiger killed two eight-month-old tiger cubs in a show of territorial dominance in Mul range of the buffer zone of Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, said forest officers. The incident occurred on Sunday night and forest officers found the bodies on Monday night. Forest officers ruled out poaching. “We spotted pug marks of a female and male adult tigers at the spot. We suspect that the cubs were killed to occupy territory or to persuade the female to mate,” said SJ Bobade, range forest office, Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) Buffer, which has 20 tigers. He added that the post mortem report revealed that there were teeth marks of a male tiger on one of the cubs’ heads and the other one was ripped apart from the body. Five tigers — three adult and two cubs — have died in Maharashtra this year owing to infighting, according to data from NGO Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI). Forest officers and members of the National Tiger Conservation Authority have set up camera traps to identify the killer tiger in the area. “When we found the bodies, they were severely decomposed. One of the cubs had its entire head ripped off while the other had injuries on its head,” said Santosh Peddiwar, forest guard. “The investigation is underway to understand the movement of this animal, who might be dangerous to tigers or other animals in the buffer area.” In India, there have been 19 cases of infighting among tigers so far, including this incident. Last year, there were 27 cases across the country. “Most cases of tiger deaths during infighting begin with the need to obtain territory and even a young cub can pose a threat to an adult tiger that has aged,” said Tito Joseph, programme coordinator, WPSI. “It has been seldom observed that tigers in search of tigresses kill the cubs to draw her attention for mating. However, our team is on the ground and we can say something conclusively only after a detailed investigation,” said Nitin Desai, director, central India, WPSI. |
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