Tigers of Central India

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Chanda to Betul, Maharashtra to MP: Tiger's 350 km journey longest in country.

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NAGPUR: In the longest tiger dispersal in the shortest time recorded in the country, a young male travelled around 350km from Chandrapur Super Thermal Power Station (CSTPS) in Maharashtra to Palaspani in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh in search of new territory. The tiger is still moving and is 50km from Melghat Tiger Reserve (MTR) and 100km from Satpura Tiger Reserve in MP, according to experts.
“The big cat’s journey to MP was full of hurdles. It crossed the busy Amravati-Nagpur NH6, agriculture fields, village roads and thrice swam across open watery canals of Upper Wardha dam in Morshi before entering Betul district on Monday evening,” said divisional forest officer (DFO) Harishchandra Waghmode, heading the monitoring operation. Now, MP forest teams too have joined the operation.
TOI on October 24 was first to report about the ‘vagabond’ tiger which had travelled 220km from CSTPS to Anjansingi in Amravati district. During this sojourn, the tiger had killed two humans.
The tiger is one of the four sub-adult cubs born and brought up in the CSTPS and is said to have left the power station area in search of territory between August 15-20. In the last over 70 days, it has travelled 350km and the journey is continuing.
Earlier, in 2011, as reported by TOI, a Karnataka tiger had travelled 280km in 15 months in search of a new home.

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The CSTPS tiger that is being chased by anxious foresters had killed a farmer Rajendra Nimkar (48) of Mangrul Dastagir on October 19, in his farm in Dhamangaon Railway of Amravati district. The same tiger had killed Moreshwar Walke (50) on October 22 in Anjansingi, 16km from the first kill spot. Both the victims were attacked when they had come within the critical distance range of the animal.
After two human kills, state’s PCCF (wildlife) AK Misra had issued order to tranquillize the tiger. The order is valid till November 30. If the tiger settles down in MP, the order may be invalidated. “On a couple of occasions when teams got chance to capture the big cat, noise from the mob of villagers disturbed the entire operation,” says Sawan Deshmukh, honorary wildlife warden of Amravati.
When the tiger was in Tiwsa, the local Congress MLA Yashomati Thakur had called up forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar demanding shoot orders for the tiger.
During the last eight days, the tiger travelled a further 130km to Talegaon (Thakur) in Tiwsa, Sarsi, Pimpalkhuti, Talni, Ambada and Chicholi (Gavli), the last village in Morshi tehsil bordering MP but did not harm any human despite people disturbing it.
During its long journey, the big cat preyed on livestock. On Sunday night, the tiger killed a calf in the farm of Satish Deshmukh in Nashitpur and on Monday it pounced on a big buffalo grazing in the farm of Anil Ekotkhane, but as it could not succeed it attacked a calf close by. The tiger ran away after the farmer raised an alarm.
“It is possible that the tiger may not have acquired the skill to prey big animals while living in CSTPS, which is a human-dominated landscape. Due to too much human disturbance, the big cat consumed portion of its prey and moved ahead,” said NGO Eco-Pro president Bandu Dhotre, who monitored the tiger from Chandrapur.
“The tiger has reached Pipalana where it killed cattle. We have 120 men including jawans of from Melghat STPF and territorial staff and officials monitoring the tiger,” said Waghmode.
Bilal Habib, HoD, Animal Ecology & Conservation Biology, Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, who confirmed it was CSTPS tiger, said, “The tiger movement indicates that the area through which the big cat travelled is still permeable. We only need to be careful with passive monitoring. We also need to save corridors and work with people to make the landscape functional for tiger movement.”

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/chanda-to-betul-maha-to-mp-tigers-350km-journey-longest-in-country/articleshow/66436589.cms?slideshow=66439552&slide=66439556#2

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