ANGUL: Rewilding of tigress Sundari, now in an enclosure in Satkosia, has reached the High Court of Madhya Pradesh after an NGO filed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking response from the Forest department of Odisha.
Field director of Satkosia Tiger Reserve Pradip Raj Karate said the chief wildlife warden of Odisha has been made one of the parties in the PIL and the state government has authorised DFO of Satkosia to attend the hearing at the Madhya Pradesh HC on his behalf next week.
“The DFO of Satkosia will leave for Bhopal next week,” he said. Karate said Sundari is doing well. “Her behaviour is normal and she is being constantly monitored by the forest personnel,” he said. Even as both National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the state government have been asking the MP government to take back the tigress, the latter has remained unresponsive.
A team from NTCA visited Satkosia Tiger Reserve and inspected the enclosure where Sundari has been accommodated. Along with tiger Mahavir, Sundari was translocated to Sakosia from Madhya Pradesh in 2018 in what was India’s first such project.
Four months after release into the wild, Mahavir was caught in a snare and died while Sundari turned hostile and killed two persons even before venturing deep into the forest. Finally it was tranquilised in November 2018 and put in the enclosure at Raigoda.