In a major cause for concern to State Forest department officials and wildlife enthusiasts, a-radio collared tiger Shrinivas has gone missing from the Umred Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary, nearly a year after his iconic tiger-father Jai disappeared in a similar manner.
Sources in the State forest department said here on Monday that on April 21, the radio collar of two-and-half-year-old Shrinivas ( tiger T10) was found in Maushi beat in Nagbhid forest range under Brahmapuri division.
Though Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) and spokesperson of the forest department's wildlife wing Girish Vashisht confirmed that Shrinivas' radio-collar was found on April 21, he refused to accept that the tiger in question had gone missing.
"Who told the tiger is missing. It is somewhere in the forest. Yes. It is fact that we found the radio collar of the tiger in question," Vashisht told "The Pioneer" on Monday evening.
Sources said that Shrinivas and Bittu (tiger T9), said to be of the same age group, had been fitted with radio collars in March 2016. Given that the batteries drained out somewhere between December 2016 and January 2017, the forest authorities fitted them with new high-tech collars a few months ago. However, the authorities found Shrinivas' radio-collar on Friday last and the wild cat was no longer traceable.
Significantly enough, Shrinivas' disappearance comes little over a year after his then 7-year-old male tiger Jay -- whose official name is UK-T1 - had gone missing.
Jay's disappearance from the sanctuary had come to the forest authorities' notice after a new radio collar attached to it to the Indian Wild life Organisation got disconnected from the satellite on April 18, 2016.
Jay was the star tiger of the Umred Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary, located 58 km away from Nagpur.
The state forest authorities have so far not located Jay. So much so that on August 24, 2016 State Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar had met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and requested him that the investigation into Jay's disappearance be handed over to the CBI. Mungatiwar's demand had come in the wake of intense speculation that Jay might have fallen prey to poachers.
Expressing serious concern over the recurring disappearances of the radio-collared tigers, former Standing Committee member of National Board for Wildlife and Satpuda Foundation President Kishor Rithe said: "Shrinivas is the third radio-collared tiger to have gone missing. Our celebrated tiger with a radio-collar went missing in April last year. He has not been found yet.
After that one more radio-collared tiger went missing from Brahmapuri forests, but there has not been any news about it in the media. Now we have a third incident".
Rithe attributed the recurring disappearances of radio-collared tigers to the "intrinsic flaws" in the radio-collaring and monitoring of the tigers in Vidarbha forests of Maharashtra. The State Forest department has assigned the job of putting the radio-collars to theIndian Wildlife Organisation (IWO).