The captivity of a wild straying tiger at Nandan Kanan Zoo in Odisha has kicked up a row. In a protest letter written to National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), certain members of National Board for Wildlife (NBWl) members have demanded the immediate release of the tiger in the wild.
The NTCA too had recently suggested the restoration of the big cat in its natural habitat. In a letter to Chief Wildlife Warden JD Sharma, it said that the tiger should be released in Satkosia, a low density tiger reserve. The authority said the forest dept should follow the standard operating procedure (SOP) to deal with straying tigers, instead of retaining it in zoo.
However, the issue flared up further, when Biswajit Mohanty, member NBWl in his letter to NTCA has alleged that its captivity is in violation of various sections of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and that of NTCA’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) dated 30.1.2013 which relates to capture and handling of straying tigers.
According to norms such captivity pertains to the violation of Section38-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which prohibits acquisition of any wild animal without the previous permission of the Central Zoo Authority (CZA). No permission had been taken from CZA to retain this wild tiger. Hence, the decision to retain the wild tiger is illegal.
Further, sub section (2) of the same section also prohibits acquisition of any wild animal except from or to a recognized zoo. This also makes the acquisition of the wild tiger in the zoo illegal.
To add to the above, Section 9 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act,1972, states that capturing a wild tiger and retaining it illegally without any attempt to release it amounts to “hunting” which is also a punishable offence under Section 51 (1) of the WPA,1972.
The recent SOP dated 30.1.2013 issued by NTCA, has also come out with protocols to tackle such situations of straying tigers into human habitats. The guidelines clearly state that a healthy, young wild tiger must be
radio collared and released in its original habitat or in a habitat with adequate prey-base
and without issues of
territorial conflict with another feline.
Mohanty in his letter has pointed out that the tiger’s pugmarks had been sighted inside the park and the adjacent Chandaka WlS for the last three months and the authorities had been trying their best to capture it by laying traps, etc. He expressed apprehensions that the forest department is likely to retain the tiger apparently to bolster its tiger gene pool for captive breeding.
Sharing his concern Kishore Rithe, also a member of NBWl, while the NTCA is spending crores of rupees annually to augment the wild tiger population, the incident is alarming considering that the Government wants to remove this perfectly healthy, non problematic animal from the wild and conserve it in the zoo.