Bhopal/ Raipur: A female tiger from Pench National Park in Madhya Pradesh covered around 400 km to find its new territory in Achanakmar Tiger Reserve (ATR) in Chhattisgarh.
The six-year-old tigress was first spotted in Lormi forest range in ATR in December 2023 and later in May-June this year, ATR field director Manoj Pandey told this newspaper on Sunday.
“We contacted the National Tiger Conservation Authority to ascertain from where the tigress moved to ATR after finding that the big cat does not originally belong to ATR.
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has confirmed from its data base on tigers that the big cat had moved from Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) to ATR”, Mr Pandey said.
The tigress was photo-captured in Ghotkoka and Karmajhiri range of PTR during the census of big cats in March, 2022, deputy director of PTR Rajneesh Singh told this newspaper.
According to Mr Singh, the tigress might have moved to ATR from PTR by passing through two tiger corridors- from PTR to Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh and then from Kanha to ATR- covering around 400 km.
“The smooth movement of the tigress from PTR to ATR has established that the two continuous tiger corridors, through which the tigress moved to find her new territory in ATR, are intact and safe”, Mr Singh said.
“It is a very significant development as far as tiger conservation is concerned”, he added.
The development has also justified the construction of dedicated corridors for wild animals at some places along the National Highway 44 to ensure their safe movement, he said.
According to Mr Singh, the tigress might have found both PTR and Kanha National Park overpopulated with big cats and hence, it moved to ATR to find its new territory.
While PTR has a tiger population of around 123, Kanha National Park has around 125 tigers.
ATR has 12 tigers including three male, seven female and two cubs, although it is of the same size in landscape as Kanha.
“It is a good development that a tigress from PTR has moved to ATR to find its new territory. This will help in creation of a better gene pool”, Mr Pandey said.
The forest officer said that he has approached the World Wide Fund for Nature, popularly known as WWF, to find out the exact route of the movement of the tigress from PTR to ATR to know more about the two tiger corridors.