Thaindian News

By Prashant Sharma

Alwar (Rajashthan), July 29 (ANI): A genetically compatible tigress from the Ranthambore Tiger reserve has been relocated to the Sariska Tiger reserve in Rajasthan, to revive hopes for tiger breeding.

The tigress, T-44, was freed in the reserve at around 11.30 a.m. after being brought by helicopter.

“The operation that we carried out today was planned in advance. We put her in the cage properly and a collar was fitted on her. We took samples and measurements in advance. The whole operation was conducted smoothly. The biggest advantage was that we saved a lot of time as earlier we planned to come by road but then we came by helicopter,” said K. Shankar, a scientist of Wildlife Institute of India (WTI) in Dehradun.

The forest already has two males and two females that had been shifted there in the past two years. The two-and-a-half-year old tigress is the fifth in the forest.

The tigers have been relocated by the state government to save the tiger population.

The five animals at Sariska will be closely monitored. Not only security has been increased in the park, all the animals are also wearing a radio collars.

“It is two-and-a-half years in age, and is an adult female. We fitted a radio collar on her. It’s a GPS radio collar. Everyday we will receive her data from the satellite. We have tested this collar earlier last week in Sariska itself. The condition of animal is fine,” said Paraag, head of Sariska Tiger Relocation Project.

On July 20, the Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, relocated a tiger to the Sariska reserve for the captive breeding programme.

Earlier, three other tigers had been brought into the reserve but they failed to produce offspring.

Poaching and loss of habitat have caused the number of tigers to plunge to alarming figure of 1411 tigers in India. (ANI)