BHUBANESWAR/ANGUL : In a major jolt to the State Government, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has put on hold the ambitious tiger relocation project between Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, India’s first inter-state big cat relocation programme, after Mahavir, the male tiger shifted to Satkosia Tiger Reserve from Kanha Tiger Reserve, was found dead on Wednesday.
The relocation programme was under cloud from the beginning of November after tigress Sundari was tranquillised and brought back to Raigoda enclosure following protest from the locals after she killed two villagers.Member Secretary of NTCA Dr Anup Kumar Nayak told this paper that a two-member team including IG Amit Malik and K Ramesh will head for Satkosia on Friday to take stock of the situation under which Mahavir or MB2 died. It will also review the condition of Sundari.
The team will review the community engagement, protection mechanism and monitoring capacity of the existing staff at Satkosia. “Only after they review and complete the investigation, a final call on the relocation project will be taken” the NTCA chief said.The Forest Department conducted the post-mortem of Mahavir as per NTCA protocol.
NTCA nominee Biswajit Mohanty, STR Field Director Sudarshan Panda, DFO Rama Samy and Athgarh DFO Susmita Lenka besides an NGO worker were present during the procedure for transparency. Additional Chief Secretary of Forest and Environment department Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said the post-mortem report failed to cite the exact reason of the wound in his dorsal neck.
“Porcupine quills were found in his stomach while the post-mortem revealed that the big cat had hunted a wild boar five days back. The wound appeared six to eight days old. We have sent the sample to forensic lab to ascertain the exact cause of the death,” he said.