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Uttarakhand all set to translocate tigers in western part of Rajaji Tiger Reserve

Seema Sharma| TNN | May 26, 2017, 06.46 PM IST

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Rajaji Tiger Reserve.

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand is all set to translocate tigers in western part of Rajaji Tiger Reserve. Permission for five tigers has been granted by National Tiger Conservation Society (NTCA). DVS Khati, chief wildlife warden told TOI, "NTCA has given permission to translocate five, comprising two males and three females for western Rajaji. In first phase, we will release one male and one female. Two females are already in the area. Two elephants have been stationed and radio collars too have been procured from World Wide Fund for Forests to tag the introduced animals in order to keep track of their movements." He said, an enclosure of around 1.5 hectare will be built in Motichur to keep the new pairs inside to get adapted to the new surroundings.


Additional principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) Dhananjai Mohan said, that young adults of tiger and tigresses would be taken from the fringe areas of Corbett Tiger Reserve or other forest divisions in that region. "The young tigers pushed out by dominant males on the edges look for new territories for themselves and usually come in conflict with humans. These tigers will be selected as it would serve two pronged purposes, the young tigers will have longer span for breeding and secondly, they are already habitual of human interface for being in the conflict zone and by removing them from there, we would also resolve the problem."


Director Rajaji Tiger Reserve , Sanatan Sonkarsaid, "The special team of Rajaji who were earlier sent for training at Panna Tiger Reserve are now all set to go for another training at Sariska Tiger Reserve as both the reserves had the success story of reviving tiger population by way of translocation after the population had come to a naught for various reasons." He said the area of 571 sq km of western part which is bigger than 250 sq km of eastern side and has brimming prey base will be the best possible habitat for the tigers to grow.

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The western part of RTR is separated from the eastern half by a narrow corridor that is threatened by the perpetual construction of flyovers, widening highways and new townships. There has also been no confirmed tiger movement between the two halves of RTR over the past seven years. The two tigresses are isolated from the rest of the big cat population in the Terai-Arc-Landscape.

Since 2005 two tigresses who were cub at that time have been left alone here while all other tiger population died one after another. No tigers from outside could ever come here since then due to corridor bottlenecks. These two tigresses are also catching up with age without breeding any cubs in their life span so far.

Pradeep Kumar , wildlife warden of Motichur range said, "We are monitoring the movements of these tigresses where the older one of around 12 years has been camera trapped in Kansro range while the youngers of around 10 years is using Motichur range more often." Reply