BHUBANESWAR: With the Madhya Pradesh (MP) High Court upholding order of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on shifting tigress Sundari to Kanha Tiger Reserve (TR) from Satkosia, a senior Forest department officer on Tuesday said it will wait for response of its MP counterpart and move forward in this matter accordingly.
“Since the MP High Court has upheld the NTCA order, we will wait for the response from MP which we have been approaching for shifting of the tigress without any delay after the translocation programme was suspended,” said RCCF Angul Pradeep Raj Karat.
The Chief Wildlife Warden (CWW) has been writing to his MP counterpart to expedite the process or intimate NTCA about the issue so that an appropriate decision can be taken to resolve of the stalemate.
Forest officials admitted that though they are taking proper care of Sundari at Raigoda enclosure in the Satkosia TR, it cannot be continued for long. “In the event of non-implementation of the order, we will seek NTCA’s advice to proceed further,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, wildlife conservationists have termed the development in Sundari’s case unfortunate and blamed the State government for its failure in implementation of the big cat relocation project touted to be the country’s first. “The State Forest department seems to have lost the faith of India’s tiger conservation establishment and it is a matter of shame that Odisha is being considered incapable of looking after its tigers,” said wildlife conservationist Aditya Panda.
Panda said the government has not been able to create a single viable tiger population anywhere in the State and as per the prescription of the All India Tiger Estimation report 2018, there is no hope for revival
of tiger population in Odisha without artificial supplementation of big cats from Central India.
“The State government needs to show the capability and commitment to provide safe habitat to tigers and strengthen its monitoring mechanism for implementation of future big cat reintroduction programmes,” Panda said.He also sought action against officials who failed to take local communities and wildlife experts into confidence before launching the reintroduction programme in Satkosia.