Upset at newly-shifted big cat’s death by poaching, NTCA reviews safety in tiger reserve
The ambitious project to repopulate Odisha’s Satkosia Tiger Reserve by translocating big cats from outside the State has gone haywire after one of the relocated tigers died, most probably due to poaching, while the other, a Royal Bengal tigress, has been kept in captivity following public outrage that it killed two people.
Unhappy at the State Government’s failure to protect the big cats and sensitise the community towards wildlife, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has now kept the translocation plan in abeyance till the “environment becomes conducive for the big cats” in the tiger reserve spread over four districts — Angul, Cuttack, Nayagarh and Boudh.
NTCA ADG Anup Nayak told The Pioneer, “Following the mishappening at the reserve we are reviewing the safety situation in the tiger reserve. We cannot allow the big cats to be translocated from other States and meet the fatal end.
“The death of the male tiger shows that sufficient steps were not taken to protect the animal. Also, the State Government must answer why the tigress had strayed outside the forest even though she was under constant observation of the forest officials.”
The tigress had to be tranquillised and kept in a zoo after the villagers in the vicinity alleged that she had mauled locals and their cattle.
Nayak said there are reports that the move to bring the big cats has met with violent protests from members of local communities on the outskirts of the reserve as they apprehend their safety and that of their livestock.
The body of MB2, the male big cat which was shifted from Madhya Pradesh’s Kanha tiger reserve in June this year, was found in Raiguda range on Hindol-Narsinghpur border — the core area of Satkosia Tiger Reserve (STR) in Angul district a few days ago.
Nayak said the exact reason of radio-collared MB2’s death is yet to be ascertained, but preliminary report suggests that it could have died of infections after it was caught in a snare trap laid by poachers.
The body was found by officials who were searching for MB2 after there were no signals from his radio collar for days. The tiger’s death came just a few weeks after the tigress which was brought from Bandhavgarh Tiger reserve in MP in August was tranquilised and kept under observation in an enclosure. This was after villagers in the vicinity of the reserve alleged that she had killed two persons.
The tigers’ fate has put a question mark on the NTCA plan to translocate three pairs of tigers from Madhya Pradesh to Odisha. This was the first ever inter-state tiger translocation in India. So far the tigers have been shifted from one reserve to another within the State itself, like for instance in Rajasthan where big cats were translocated from Ranthambore tiger reserve to Sariska tiger reserve.
Odisha has three tiger reserve — Satkosia, Sunabeda and Simplipal. According to the 2016 tiger census, Odisha has 40 Royal Bengal Tigers — 13 males, 24 females and three calves. The relocation is part of a tiger recovery programme to shore up the floundering population of tigers in Satkosia where tigers vanished due to biotic pressure.
Conservationist Biswajit Mohanty, who had been opposing the relocation plan since beginning, feel it is bound to happen as though the poor prey base in Satkosia has shown a recovery in the core area, it is not enough to sustain a significant tiger population.
“Satkosia had poor prey base earlier. However, there is recovery in the last four years in the core area. But as a tiger landscape it cannot sustain more than four to five tigers that too only if they stay in the core area and do not stray to the buffer zone. The area has 102 villages in both core and buffer zones. There are villages surrounding it on all sides. At least 50,000 cattle enter the park everyday,” Mohanty said.
Relocation of tigers at Satkosia can only be done if locals accept them, Mohanty maintained, questioning the long-term viability of the translocation. “Without local support it would be impossible for the forest department to protect the tigers. I also fail to understand what the relocation will ultimately achieve for tiger conservation in the long term as there aren’t 100 tigers in the state, which is the minimum required for viability. The two or three tiger pairs will breed but this will be inbreeding and they will die out in two or three decades,” he said.