‘Relocated tigers can’t adjust’

The whole issue of translocation of tigers being bred in captivity and then released into the wild has been questioned by the forest officials of the tiger rich state of Madhya Pradesh. An RTI has revealed that the principal chief conservator of forests(Wildlife) Narender Kumar has written to the National Tiger conservation Authority (NTCA) that he does not want hand-bred tigresses to be relocated to the Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) as his staff had faced enormous hurdles in trying to get them to readjust in the wild. PTR had zoomed to international prominence when a five year-old tigress, tagged T-4, had become the world’s first hand-reared tigress to give birth in the wild. The tigress had been born in May 2006 in the Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR) but, since her mother died within days of her birth, the staffers there had reared her in an enclosure. Unfortunately, brought to PTR along with another hand-bred tigress, she has failed to adjust and continues to wander around the reserve picking up fights with other tigers. The other tigress has settled down “a little better” but forest officials remain on tenterhooks. Wildlife activist Belinda Wright pointed out, “hand-bred tigers have problems with hunting, creating their own territories and also socialising with other tigers.”