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Bigcats News
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Ranthambore tigress Sharmilee, a symbol of man-animal bonhomie, dead
On Wednesday, some forest guards on a routine tracking exercise found her carcass in the ravines of the Kalisindh river. After living most of her life in seclusion, in the free riverine ranges of Sultanpur near Kota, away from the spotlight and attention of tourists and CCTV cameras at the Ranthambore National Park, tigress Sharmilee maintained the mystery surrounding her life in death too. On Wednesday, some forest guards on a routine morning tracking exercise found Sharmilee’s carcass in the ravines of the Kalisindh river. She died four days earlier and the body had started to decay when the guards found her. Unlike other tigers, which are usually embroiled in a struggle for survival with the human population around them, Sharmilee was loved by people. According to forest department sources, locals led an agitation when a Wildlife Institute of India team tried to move her to Sariska or Ranthambore to mate her with other tigers. With poaching and man-animal conflict unlikely to have caused her death, the forest department is finding it difficult to ascertain what led to her death. “As of now, we are not ruling out anything. We have collected the viscera sample and anything conclusive could be said only after the postmortem, toxicology and histopathology reports are in,” said a forest official from the Kota range. The “nine-to-ten year old” Tigress, officially named T-35, had left her home in the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve when she was three. She was named Sharmilee-the shy one-because of her extremely evasive nature. So much so that ever since she chose to leave Ranthambore’s stardom-and companionship of other big cats-for a life tucked away in the lush ranges of Sultanpur forest near Kota, she was captured only once by CCTV cameras. “Despite several attempts, she was caught on camera only once, in March 2010,” a forest official told The Express. According to forest officials, residents living near the Sultanpur range loved her and hence, it is unlikely they would have poisoned her kill. Department sources said Sharmilee watched over the villages near Sultanpur, “almost like a guardian angel”. “She prevented other wild animals like panthers from venturing into the forests, neutralized Nilgais that are notorious for destroying standing crops and played a major role in preserving the lush forest since nobody would dare venture inside fearing her,” said an official. Since the tigress lived alone in the forests, officials tried to move her to either Sariska or back to Ranthambore where she could find a partner and procreate. However, when a Wildlife Institute of India team tried to tranquilize the tigress, villagers led an agitation, demanding that the animal be allowed to stay in Sultanpur. “I remember the villagers were not happy about the prospect of her being moved. We tried to move her several times, the last time in 2013, but they did not like it. In any case, she was so evasive, we could not find her. She did not want to be moved…perhaps she did not want companionship,” recalls G Vishvanath Reddy, Chief Wildlife Warden, Rajasthan http://indianexpress.com/article/india/i...ound-dead/
A mockery of both science and sensibility: What’s wrong with the tiger numbers
No, the tiger is not out of the woods. If numbers presented ahead of last week’s global tiger meet in New Delhi showed minor gains due to better counting methods, they also revealed massive losses. Written by Jay Mazoomdaar | Updated: April 19, 2016 12:43 pm  *This image is copyright of its original author Big cats in Ranthambhore. Tigers have disappeared from at least 40 per cent of the forests they roamed 10 years ago. (Picture: Dharm Khandal)On April 11, a day before ministers of 13 tiger range countries assembled in New Delhi to pledge support for the big cat, a statement by the WWF-International and Global Tiger Forum claimed that the global tiger count was on the rise for the first time in a century. The global media went into a tizzy with the press release, and the delegates at the tiger gala looked suitably proud. The claim is little more than a mockery of both science and sensibility. It is like concluding that the number of stars in the sky has gone up just because the invention of better telescopes has led to the discovery of faraway, hitherto invisible, celestial bodies. Better enumeration methods through refined camera trapping and DNA analysis, etc. now increasingly account for animals that were either missed or not identified as separate individuals previously. Yet, given that the elusive tiger’s habitat includes some of the most remote and hostile terrain on earth, the truth is that we simply do not know — and may never know — exactly how many tigers there are in the wild. The new global figure of 3,890 is an aggregate of what each tiger country has claimed as its tiger population. It has no benchmark for accuracy, as different countries use different counting methods, ranging from refined extrapolation based on sophisticated camera trapping to rudimentary spoor (pug mark tracks, droppings, even scent) surveys. In fact, even the 2010 global tiger population of 3,200, against which the current figure of 3,890 is being compared to claim a gain, was only a guesstimate (See chart).  *This image is copyright of its original author At different points and going by different ‘authoritative’ sources, the tiger population during 2009-11 could have been anything between 3,000 and 4,000. Somehow, the global consensus was to settle for 3,200, with a goal to double the number by 2022. Halfway to the deadline, some ‘encouraging’ data was perhaps in order. The claim has already drawn flak from a number of tiger scientists, including some who were not invited to last week’s jamboree. While it is easy to attack the claim on numbers, some have questioned the feasibility of doubling the world’s tiger population by 2022, the goal of the Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP), built on the foundation of all 13 National Tiger Recovery Priorities (NTRPs). GTRP had itself modified its ambitious target and eventually settled for a 60% increase — from 3,643 to 5,870 — by 2022. Though a tall order, achieving the goal is not a theoretical impossibility. A landmark 2010 study had identified 42 ‘source’ forests that contain almost 70% of all remaining wild tigers. The remaining populations are found in fringe habitats — ‘sink’ forests — that are typically fragmented and unsafe for the big cat. The 2010 study went on to say: “Even source sites, however, have depressed tiger populations. Only five, all of which are in India, maintain tiger populations close (>80%) to their estimated carrying capacity. Thus, the recovery of populations in source sites alone would result in a 70% increase in the world’s tiger population.” However, some of the authors of that study have now cautioned that doubling of the world’s tigers in 10 years was not a realistic proposition because 70%-90% of tigers were in ‘source’ populations with slow growth, and it was unlikely that the ‘sink’ populations would multiply rapidly. In fact, few were ever hopeful of meeting the target of the ‘TX2: Double Wild Tigers’ programme. Likewise, the celebratory claim about a global rise in numbers for the first time in a century deserved no more than a chuckling dismissal. But for the timing. It came a day ahead of the Third Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among others, pledged support for conservation. It also came at a time when India’s forests and its 2,000-odd surviving tigers are faced with an unprecedented development spree under a government committed to rapid single-window clearance for destroying forest land. And at a time when successive governments at the Centre and in the states have succeeded in getting institutions such as the Wildlife Institute of India and National Tiger Conservation Authority to dilute their stand so that national highways can trifurcate the forests of central India without having to undertake adequate mitigation measures necessary for the tiger to have its right of way. Since 2010, tigers may or may not have increased in numbers across the world. But they have certainly disappeared from 40% of the forests they roamed until 10 years ago. For all practical purposes, they are extinct in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and China. In India, the tiger habitat has shrunk by more than 25% in the last decade. This is certainly not the time for an orchestrated ‘All is well’ chant. And that is why this toast is in rather poor taste. http://indianexpress.com/article/explain...a-2759532/ 
What a stupid article. Literally NOBODY is wiping their hands and saying "well...tigers are saved, people! Our work here is done!" Idiot author.
And this terrible analogy: Quote:It is like concluding that the number of stars in the sky has gone up just because the invention of better telescopes has led to the discovery of faraway, hitherto invisible, celestial bodies. That's exactly how it works. This guy writes like he's so bitter. Like somebody took his lunch money and stuffed him in a locker and now he's out so he's gonna pen some ridiculous article filled with terrible analogies and bitter, half-truths. (04-20-2016, 02:39 AM)stoja9 Wrote: What a stupid article. Literally NOBODY is wiping their hands and saying "well...tigers are saved, people! Our work here is done!" Idiot author. I think you may have missed his point, what he is saying is that technology has gotten better so to compare a count of insufficient practices to a much more accurate count method would be incorrect, then to mix in a census using one method to other census' using different method is irresponsible. He is saying that the irresponsibly reported "increase" in tiger numbers is nothing more than a propaganda campaign, which it is. We can't just take a countries word for it if they say their numbers are stable or down or up, we must use the same methods everywhere to actually give a real estimation. Science isn't perfect but it certainly isn't something to scoff at, it needs to be done in a responsible and cohesive way.
Bhopal, Apr 19: Two tigers have died at Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR) in Madhya Pradesh, taking the death toll of big cats in the state to 20 since May last year. The latest death reports came at a time when a team formed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is probing the big cat deaths in the state.
Read more at: http://www.oneindia.com/india/two-tigers-die-kanha-toll-mp-one-year-reaches-20-2074927.html?utm_source=article&utm_medium=fb-button&utm_campaign=article-fbshare "A tiger and a tigress have died in our park," KTR field director JS Chauhan told PTI today. The carcass of the 14-year-old tiger was found in Supkar range of the park on April 16. It died of starvation as it was unable to hunt due to advanced age, a common occurrence in the big cat family, he claimed. The tigress was found dead in Mukki range of KTR yesterday. It died after sustaining injuries to its head in a fight with a tiger, Chauhan said. It appears that the tigress and its cub went for a kill and were attacked by another tiger, he added. With these two deaths, 20 tigers have died in Madhya Pradesh's forests in the last 12 months. Some of them were killed by poachers. A tigress and its two cubs were poisoned to death in the core area of Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) on March 28. Four poachers were arrested in this case. A two-member team of NTCA visited PTR earlier this month. The team of D Swain, Inspector General of Forest, NTCA, Nagpur and A R Choudhary, Assistant Director of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Jabalpur, is expected to visit other tiger reserves and places where big cat deaths have been reported. "We are going to submit our report as soon as possible so that corrective measures are taken quickly to prevent tigers' deaths in Madhya Pradesh," Swain told PTI. PTI Very sad news, I wonder which tigers they are? 
Update from Umred Karhandla WLS :
Both Bittu as well as Srinivas, the male cubs of Tigress T-6 were radio-collared in the last week of March'16. At the time of chemical immobilization, while Bittu weighed in at 138 Kgs, Srinivas weighed 127 Kgs. Tigress Chandi has produced her next litter. She was spotted by Forest Guards in a nallah near Karhandla Lake (which is out of bounds for tourists) with 2 tiny tots on 20th April'16. It's yet to be ascertained at this stage if there could be more than 2 cubs though. The above info has been obtained from Mr.Karoo, the Hon.Wildlife Warden of Umred Karhandla.
Great Machhali was spotted at Ranthambhore Rd.
Ranthambhore | April 14,2016 Ranthambhore : Great Machhali, The world famous tigress of Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve was spotted at Ranthambhore Rd. while she was walking slowly-slowly in the evening time on April 13, 2016.
After the finishing my evening game drive , as my gypsy passed at Mishr Dara Gate, suddenly my Guest, Mr. Roy from UK said,” TIGER-TIGER”, we stopped immediately and saw Machhali was walking slowly-slowly….inside the bushes. It was really good spotting in the side the bushes by guest, Mr. Roy. Thank you very much Mr. Roy..
She walked more than 50 meters one side of the Ranthambhore Road, while lots of visitors from park and people from Ganesh-temple were collected on the way to see the Great Tigress. Immediately our forest guards reached there to avoid any incident. She walked for quite long and sat down at one point for drinking water just behind small rock. After drinking water, she stood up and obliged the all visitors and walked back and disappeared from the sight inside the bushes.
She seems quite week. Her body moment was quite slow due to old age. Her right hand side eye looks white. That is indication that she has lost her vision from that eye.
She was also sighted near Singh Dawar at Ranthambhore Rd. in the morning time. Four days ago, she was also sighted at Jogi Mahal at zone no. 3.
It was really great time to see Machhali. God bless HER… The Pride of Ranthambhore.  *This image is copyright of its original author http://www.ranthambhoreguides.com/blog/g...ambhore-rd
Tigress Chandi of Umred Karhandla WLS with her latest litter of 4. Speculation is rife that there could be another cub too in this litter.
The real story of Blue Eye Male's death, straight from the horse' mouth (The Field Director of Bandhavgarh).
"Quote" Have been getting requests from various friends to clarify the confusion created over death of Blue Eye. As I had been travelling due to Asia ministerial summit at New Delhi so could not find time to post on social media. Though press notes and interviews were released to print and electronic media. The facts are very simple. An injured tiger Blue Eyes was taking shelter in the stop dam of a village Barsajaha tola. Villagers were upset and angry as the stop dam was used by the village cattle to drink water. With the reluctance of the tiger to move away the cattle had nowhere to go.On the evening of 9th April, angry villagers were reported to be advancing towards the tiger. In order to ensure safety of both, the tiger and villagers, the forest team tried to push the tiger back to forest. In the process the forest team including the joint director of the reserve and one range officer received injuries. In fact the Tigers' belly brushed the back of the crouching Mr Bangar, our joint director, he got the nail bites on his hips while OP Bhalawi, the forest ranger has a fractured arm. We used this instance to convince the villagers that the blue eyes was not a man eater as it had been branded by many agencies, media, local leaders and even local police registered a case of man eating against it. We told the villagers that tiger was not only trying to protect itself but was protecting the people as well, otherwise the people coming in its path would be proverbial sitting ducks. Elephants and rescue team were deployed to ensure it does not come near the village. But next day on 10th April, it came back again, took shelter in the same stop dam from where it was pushed back yesterday. Serious injuries were noticed above eye and flies all over the body. Again the rescue team tried to push it back to forest with the help of the two elephants. It was found that it was not able to walk. After some distance it stopped and put its head down in recumbent position. The team of vets got worried. Alarm was sounded. Permission to administer life saving drugs and antibiotics issued. The medicines were administered through darts. Some relief, some movement and after that it collapsed again. On closer examination it was found to have serious canine bites on neck and claw injuries on other parts of body. On post mortem septicaemia caused due to these wounds was found to be reason of death. There has been reports of tranquilization and overdose quoting sources or sutras casting doubts over the intention or capabilities of vet of the park. I would like to remind that the same tiger was treated back in 2012, 2013 and 2014. It recovered every time. But one should remember, it was the same vet who saved him on all previous occasions. And received lots of flak when it disappeared after treatment only to reappear later on. We need to consider the following facts 1. What was forcing the tiger to keep coming back to village? A battered tiger with barely any strength left to fight another invading tiger. With deep wounds on the neck region clearly canine bites along with claw marks on eye and shoulder festering for past 6-8 days, poison spreading across vital organs. Yesteryear's hero of tala and Magadhi core, was pushed out to buffer forests three years ago, was limping ever since feeding on cattle, branded as man eater by many pressure groups, now was being forced out of buffer too and was taking shelter in village. It didn't have energy or strength to go back to forest with the presence of other male. 2.What medicine would a vet administer, life saving drug approved by higher authorities or tranquilization drugs on his own? 3. What are the options with a rescue team with two elephants? You need at least four elephants to perform tranquilization, you have to corner the animal so that it doesn't disappear and has to be revived after sedation. With two elephants you can only push it towards the jungle, which is what was intended and done in present case. 4. When there was no plan, permission, situation or intention to tranquilize, where is the question of overdose? 5. The fact is, permission to administer dexamethasone and antibiotic was issued once it was found that it was unable to walk back to forest and sat down with head in recumbent position. As the condition didn't improve other senior vets and officers were consulted. All the attempts were made to save its life, but it could not be saved. 6. The invading male tiger BTR MP T 06 announced itself the very next day, marching across where blue eye used to stay resting just 600 meters away, with tell-tale wound marks on forelimbs. That is all about the territory fight theory which led to demise of battered blue eye. However samples for toxicological and histopathological tests have been collected and sent across different labs to ascertain the cause of death as per the protocol laid down by NTCA. If anyone has any evidence or clue to counter any of the facts stated above is welcome to approach us in all privacy and submit any evidence or proof , proving anything counter to the facts mentioned above.
Latest official news on Bamera.
"Quote" Male tiger BTR MP T 63 aka Bamera male, kept in enclosure 2 of Baheraha in Bandhavgarh, was found to be badly limping and was walking with great difficulty. It has been in the enclosure since 2nd Nov 2015 due to its inability to walk and has been under treatment. The team of doctors from Panna Tiger Reserve and Centre for Wildlife and Forensics, Jabalpur examined the male tiger T63 and found the condition deteriorating. Chief wildlife warden of Madhya Pradesh is arranging more veterinary experts for its treatment. Let's pray for BTR MP T 63 aka Bamera male 
It breaks my heart to see Bamera like that, the legendary tiger of Bandhavgarh is now reduced to this. I hope he recovers from this.
Tfs 
04-27-2016, 11:38 AM
( This post was last modified: 04-27-2016, 03:08 PM by sanjay
Edit Reason: corrected the format
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@Vijay Rajan
Thanks for the info on Bamera and Blue eye. Is there is any weight and measurement details taken on Bamera and Blue eye when they were captured. Any info on Tarun aka Bheema from Magdhi zone, didnt see or heard about him for sometime now. Thanks |
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