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Tiger Reserves in India
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₹12cr funding allocated for tiger release in Buxa
We will bring in three tigers from Assam: Principal chief conservator of forests Special Correspondent  *This image is copyright of its original author The National Tiger Conservation Authority has sanctioned Rs 12 crore for reintroduction of royal Bengal tigers in the Buxa Tiger Reserve in Alipurduar district. The Bengal forest department had decided to reintroduce the big cat that has not been sighted in the BTR for many years. Assam foresters had already agreed to send tigers to Buxa. “The NTCA has granted ₹12 crore for reintroduction of tigers in the BTR. We have completed all necessary formalities with the government of Assam and initially, we will bring in three tigers,” said Ravikant Sinha, principal chief conservator of forests, Bengal. Buxa is the only tiger reserve in north Bengal though photos of the animal were repeatedly clicked in the Neora Valley National Park in Kalimpong. A tiger was killed near the Jaldapara National Park at Alipurduar in 2007. Senior Bengal foresters had drawn up a plan to bring in tigers from Assam and release the same into Buxa. Residents of villages in the core areas of Buxa were shifted and the prey base was boosted by the release of herbivores. Sinha said the forest department had initially planned to get six tigers from Assam. “But we want to know how the tigers behave after their release in the BTR. If everything goes fine, 3 more would be released in due course.” Over the course of past few decades, tigers had disappeared from West Bengal's Buxa Tiger Reserve, as foresters had claimed that the habitat of the big cat has shrunk to a small area on the foothills adjoining Bhutan. Interference from human settlement along tea-plantations outside forests & cattle- grazing had made tigers to move camp northwards from their habitat, which once spread across Buxa forest in north Bengal. State Wildlife Board member Biswajit Roychowdhury, who had participated in the last census, said they had found evidence of the presence of the big cats along Bhutan border but it was tough to say whether those tigers whose pug marks & scat we found in Buxa are residents or transitory ones coming from Bhutan. Ecological preferences of large carnivores in remote, high-altitude protected areas: insights from Buxa Tiger Reserve, India (Cambridge.org) |
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