By Sanjay Sharma, IANS,
Bhopal: Lonely times are over for the two tigresses of Panna Tiger Reserve. A suitable match has been found and the male tiger will be shifted to the reserve anytime within a fortnight, forest officials said.
“We have found a suitable male tiger in the Pench tiger reserve for the two translocated tigresses in Panna reserve. The animal would be shifted to Panna, say within a week or two depending upon climatic conditions and other factors,” Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) R.S. Negi told IANS.
A team of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Madhya Pradesh forest officials was camping in Pench to ensure that the process of shifting the two-year-old male to Panna, about 450 km from the state capital, is done according to central government guidelines.
Earlier, another male tiger had been identified for relocation to Panna in the last week of September, but the tiger turned out to be from the same gene pool as that of the tigresses, which had been shifted from Bandhavgarh in March this year.
The tigresses were relocated to Panna to revive the big cat population in the park, which once had more than 30 tigers but was found to be devoid of the big cats by a central team earlier this year.
The tigresses were shifted to Panna on the state forest department’s claims that a male tiger was already there, but later the report about sighting of a male tiger was found to be misleading.
Sanction to shift a male tiger was sought from the centre, which cleared the proposal in June, while maintaining that accountability would be fixed for the disappearance of the big cats from the reserve.
“Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, while giving his nod to the proposal to translocate the big cat asked the state government to strictly adhere to the tiger relocation protocol framed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA),” sources said.
The NTCA approved protocol for relocation of tigers from one habitat to another includes choosing specimens from different landscapes to avoid inbreeding, the official said.
This will be the third Royal Bengal tiger to be relocated to the 543 sq km Panna National Park, spread in the districts of Panna and Chhatarpur in eastern Madhya Pradesh.
According to a WII report, two years ago the reserve had 15 to 30 tigers, but lost them all.