The negligence of the Madhya Pradesh forest department and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has endangered the life of five forlorn tiger cubs in the State.
Wildlife and RTI activist from the State capital Ajay Dube on Sunday informed that of the five endangered forlorn tiger cubs three are kept in Kanha national park and two at Bandhavgarh in open enclosures.
Dube said that of these forlorn tiger cubs a tigress was died in Bandhavgarh due to the negligence of the park administration on May 18, 2013. The mothers of all these cubs were also killed by the poachers and that is why these cubs were kept in the enclosure due to safety reasons.
Dube said that the documents obtained through RTI revealed that the NTCA and the state forest department are playing letter-letter with each other despite taking any concrete step to relocate these tiger cubs. In 2009 the chief wild life custodian of the state wrote to NTCA demanded procedure and protocol for shifting these tiger cubs, but neither the NTCA bothered to reply nor any follow up was done form here.
It was only after the death of the tigress in Bandhavgarh that the officials of the forest department got awakened and after over four years again wrote a letter on June 3, to the NTCA wishing to know the guidelines for the relocation of these cubs, he added.
He said that one more serious issue was revealed that the wildlife headquarters has issued instructions on April 8, 2013, to the Bandhavgarh park administration to open the tigress but due to the transfers of the directors in the same period this instructions were not implemented resulting in the death of the tigress on May 18, that is serious and criminal negligence but till date no one has been made accountable for this.
He said that we have written a mail to the Union Minister of Environment Jayanthi Natarajan for her intervention in the matter and instruct the state authorities for safety of these cubs.