Tiger Reserves in India

[Ashutosh]

In the 2018 tiger census, Buxa tiger reserve of West Bengal came up with 0 tiger camera trapped. This caused a lot of consternation amongst state wildlife officials and embarrassed them as well. Since then, there has been proof of a couple of tigers (they weren’t camera trapped in the duration of the census).

Now, to rectify this scenario, Buxa is planning on bringing 6 tigers from Kaziranga to repopulate it’s forest which itself is said to have degraded over the last decade. The plan is to first bring in 3 (most probably 1 male, 2 females) and a year later, 3 more.

Two issues with this: First, the subpopulation at Kaziranga is distinct, and not that close to other populations of north East, and considering there maybe a couple of tigers already in this reserve who have a different population marker, should there be this hotch potch of genetic flow?

On the other hand, Kaziranga is absolutely bursting at the seams with tiger numbers. It’s already pretty saturated carrying more tigers than it’s carrying capacity. So, those tigers may benefit from an alternative home, a home that has the highest mortality rate of any big cat per population size, hence reducing the pressure.

https://www.deccanherald.com/national/east-and-northeast/bengals-buxa-reserve-to-get-6-royal-bengal-tigers-from-kaziranga-802781.html Reply