The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has turned down Rajasthan Government’s proposal seeking translocation of two big cats from Madhya Pradesh to Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) in Alwar, saying it has done nothing to curb “human disturbance” which negatively influenced tigers’ breeding in the protected area.
The tiger watchdog has made it clear to Rajasthan that unless it addresses the “irritants” to ensure tiger conservation, the NTCA would not allow shifting of any new tiger in the STR.
“Key problems like disturbance from the villagers living in the STR and acute shortage of forest staff continue to exist. There is question of allowing relocation of more tigers in the big cat habitat,” said Anup Kumar Nayak, head of the NTCA.
The stinging observation came at a review meeting recently with the State officials when the NTCA, much to its annoyance found that not enough was done to ensure conducive habitat to the tigers in the protected area. There are around 26 villages in the STR spread over 1,200 sq km while staff shortage particularly forest guards is as high as fifty per cent.
In the span of two years since 2018, the reserve has lost three fully grown tigers. Presently, the tiger population in the STR is hugely skewed in favour of females — one male tiger for nine tigress.
Overall, there are 16 big cats in the protected area —nine tigress, three cubs and four male tigers of which only one is in the reproduction bracket. Three others are sub-adults, not capable of breeding.
Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan Arindam Tomar said as some of the tigress are infertile, the reserve needs a tigress and a male from MP to inject fresh gene pool in the predator family.
He said that inbreeding among the existing tigers in the reserve was resulting in ‘miscarriage’ and hence there was a need to create a fresh gene pool tigers.
Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically.
However, Tomar admitted that disturbance was also one of the main reasons hampering breeding among the predator.
In this context, even the Wildlife Institute of India in its study “Monitoring of reintroduced tigers in Sariska Tiger Reserve, Phase 2” spanning four years since 2015, pointed out that “ruggedness and human disturbavne significantly influenced the breeding and spatial dynamics of the tigers in Sarsika. While ruggedness had a positive influence, the human disturbance negatively influence tigers’ breeding.”
On the basis of the study, the research team comprising of WII scientists Parag Nigam, OK Malik, Bilal Habib and K Sankar prioritized two separate blocks consisting of six villages for relocation to achieve optimum conservation success by clearting an inviolate space for tigers to breed in and for the population to recover.
Tomar said that after the gap of three years, relocation process has initiated again. “We hope to relocate good number of villages at the earliest.”
Under the original tiger reintroduction program of (NTCA) started in 2008, around20 tigers were to be reintroduced in Sariska TigerReserve (STR).
Of which nine till date have been reintroduced in STR. Four of them -- three males and a female -- died due to various reasons such as poisoning, territorial fight , poaching and heat stroke.
NTCA’s refusal for shifting of big cats in the STR comes following in the wake of translocation fiasco in Odisha’s Satkosia sanctuary where a tiger died and another had to be caged because of locals’ hostilaity.
“This is what happened in Odisha’s Satkosia tiger reserve where the state Government did not take the community in confidence for iger conservation. The result was that we lost two wild tigers,” he said expressing unhappiness at the Rajasthan Government’s failure to provide conducive environment for the big cats in Sariska sancutary.
Ghazala Shahabuddin affiliated to the Centre for Ecology, Development and Research, Dehradun goes to the extreme saying that tiger tag should be stripped off from the Sariska reserve.
“STR does not have any connectivity with other protected areas (PAs),” Shahabuddin said adding that “Let us keep it for its other wildlife and other ecosystem values such as it being the home of Aravalli fauna and being a store house for water in the region.
“Out of 866 square kilometres, only about 200 sq km in Core Area is good habitat for tigers,” she said adding that tigers are roaming in this area only.
Surrounded by villages, STR is largely cut off from other forests, she added. Rajasthan’s former principal chief wildlife warden R N Mehrotra too asserted that the main reason for non-breeding or inadequate breeding and several miscarriages was the large scale human interference in the tigerhabitat.
The tiger re-introduction programme, the first of its kind in the world, was taken up in the sanctuary in 2008 as there were no tigers in2004 due to large scale poaching.
