BHUBANESWAR: In a major setback to Odisha’s big cat conservation efforts, forest officials on Sunday seized the hide of a rare melanistic tiger, exclusive to the Similipal landscape, from the possession of two persons in the fringe areas of the tiger reserve. Five persons have been detained in this connection.
Reliable sources said a team from Baripada Forest Division recovered the melanistic tiger skin from the two persons, while carrying out a raid in the fringe villages of Udala range, near Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR), early in the morning.
Speaking to TNIE, a forest official said they are suspecting the tiger might have been poached recently as the hide appears to be only three to six months old. “Interrogation of the accused has also established involvement of multiple other individuals in the case. Accordingly, raids have been launched in Udala, Kaptipada and other fringe areas of STR,” he said.
Sources said the Forest department may send the skin samples to Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Centre for Wildlife Health at OUAT for examination.
As it is, this is the second melanistic tiger skin that the forest authorities have seized in the last 14 months from the fringe areas of Similipal Tiger Reserve, considered the world’s only habitat for these illusive black cats.
A special enforcement wing of the Similipal South Wildlife Division had seized the hide of a melanistic tiger from Tentula village and recovered its nails from Balighat following a raid on January 12 last year. At least four persons had been arrested in this connection.
The back-to-back seizure of two melanistic tiger hides within a span of 14 months has, meanwhile, exposed the threat the striped predators are facing in the state’s biggest tiger reserve. It also raises question on the protection measures in Similipal where forest authorities have installed over 200 AI-integrated cameras in the recent years and are planning to develop the landscape as a model big cat habitat in terms of tiger conservation.
PCCF (wildlife) Prem Kumar Jha and STR field director Prakash Chand Gogineni couldn’t be reached for their comments.