A village in the Terai East forest division had a surprise visitor on the weekend—a lone tiger cub. Coming to the rescue of the tiger cub, the forest department team toiled for about two hours and succeeded in caging the cub without humans touching it.
The caged cub was kept out in the open in the woods and two personnel kept watch the whole night but its mother did not return for the cub.
The divisional forest officer Nitish Mani Tripathi informed that in the Devnagar village adjoining jungles of the Dauli range, a tiger cub reached an under-construction home on Saturday evening. On being informed about it, Barakoli ranger Pradeep Kumar and Dauli ranger Anil Kumar reached the site along with department personnel.
They managed to net the cub estimated to be about six months old.
The first priority of the department was to try and reunite the cub with its mother.
The caged cub was placed below a tall tree atop which a machan was built. Two trainee IFS officers- Kundan Kumar and Mahatim Yadav stayed on the machan the whole night to open the cage in case the mother returned.
However, till Sunday evening, the mother of the cub did not come to the site. The department then took the tiger cub to the Nainital zoo’s rescue centre at Ranibagh.
The ranger of Dauli range, Anil Joshi informed that the department personnel marked a spot in the jungle and built a machan on a tree. They also began a search for the mother of the cub but did not succeed in finding her.
The cub has been sent to the rescue centre for proper care. In the meantime, the department staff will continue searching for the mother of the cub. Apart from searching on foot, cameras will also be set up in places to help in the search operation, he informed.