Two Zoos in the State, one at Ormanjhi and the other at Kalimatee, would send in male and female sambhar in Tiger Reserve Palamu in an exercise to increase the fast dwindling population of this wildlife here in the Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR).
DFO Core of the PTR A K Mishra said these male and female sambhar would be made to breed as this wildlife is a highly prolific breeder and if these are well taken care of their number is surer to increase in a few years time.
The captive sambhar would be kept in enclosure which is to come up in PTR’s Bareysarn
The enclosure will be spread over in 20 hectares of this tiger reserve. It will be for sambhar. Palatable grasses would be developed there for this. The sambhar will get a feel of no captivity but there would be such for them to stop their going stray from here.
Once grown up the sambhar will be released from here.
There would be no barbed wire in this enclosure as barbed wire would harm the health of the sambhar. Channels would be dug up across the enclosure of the sambhar.
The PTR officials were crying for a separate enclosure for sambhar over the last three years.
Its decline in number was posing serious threat to the food chain of the tiger and leopard here. Sambhar is a major prey base of tiger. Absence of it means tiger either going for farmers’ cattle or straying in some non PTR areas from here.
DFO Core said the enclosure and captive breeding would show results in a few years time.