There is a new entrant to the wildlife list of Himachal Pradesh. For the first time ever, a tiger has been spotted in Renuka Wildlife sanctuary Sirmaur district. According to forest officials, though the area is not a tiger habitat, there are chances that it has migrated from adjoining Rajaji National Park of Uttarakhand.
Wildlife experts say if claims regarding the presence of a tiger in Renuka Sanctuary are corroborated, the State should pursue the Environment Ministry to extend the area of the tiger project from Rajaji National Park to Renuka and neighbouring Simbhalwara Sanctuaries.
Himachal Pradesh’s wildlife officials have begun looking for the tiger spotted in Renuka sanctuary. A team has been set up to search for the tiger in the 402-hectare sanctuary ever since a watchman of the Renuka lion Safari-cum-Mini Zoo near Nahan town spotted the tiger on May 16 night.
“We have installed camera traps in safari’s adjoining wildlife sanctuary to track the movement of the wild animal,” said Sandeep Rattan, wildlife wing’s senior veterinary officer.
He said the area is not a habitat for tigers, but there are chances that it might have migrated from adjoining Rajaji National Park. “For over a month, we were getting reports from villagers (settled in periphery of the sanctuary) about the sighting of the tiger. Our lion safari guard spotted it. His claims can’t be a farce as he could easily distinguish the wild cat with black stripes,” he said.
The lion safari, which is part of the wildlife sanctuary, is home to two lions and several leopards. The official said more camera traps would soon be laid in the forest. “A team of experts in pugmark and scat (fecal) identification has been dispatched.”
According to the wildlife wing, famous mammals found in the sanctuary are leopard, jackal, jungle cat and various herbivores like barking and spotted deer, wild boar, hare and porcupine.
The sighting of the leopard is quite common in the sanctuary.
Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife) Satish Gupta said: “We have extensively surveyed the area. We have spread sand in the forest to take his (tiger’s) pugmarks.”
Researchers with the high-altitude field station of the Zoological Survey of India in Solan town say the spotting of a tiger in Himachal Pradesh was only recorded in the Simbhalwara sanctuary, also in Sirmaur district, earlier.
“like the elephants, the tiger occasionally migrate from the adjoining Rajaji National Park to Simbhalwara,” said a researcher.
He added researchers twice collected scats of a tiger in Simbhalwara sanctuary between 2005 and 2007. Simbhalwara supports a thick growth of elephant grass, making it ideal for a tiger reserve, they said. Both Renuka and Simbhalwara sanctuaries lie in proximity. Even Kalesar forest in Haryana is adjoining the Rajaji National Park.