More than a month after it walked into the Nandankanan Zoological Park here, the five-year-old tiger escaped into the wild late on Saturday, by scaling the 18 ft wall of an enclosure into which it was transferred on Friday night.
Meanwhile, the zoo authorities have been asked to submit a report on the incident by Chief Wildlife Warden J D Sharma.
Apprehending that the tiger’s escape might trigger panic in the nearby villages, the Divisional Forest Officer of Chandaka as well as City Division have been asked to alert the locals.
Director of the Nandankanan Zoo, Sudarshan Panda, has deployed a team to patrol the sanctuary and to keep track of the large cat while placing pressure impression pads to collect pugmarks of the feline. The carnivore is believed to have gone into the sanctuary where its pugmarks were found in the morning.
The tiger had walked into the zoo safari on April 30 after roaming the forests of Chandaka and before that Athgarh and Dhenkanal. However, its entry snowballed into a controversy with a section demanding its release into the wild while another seeking that it remain in captivity for breeding purposes.
The Chief Wildlife Warden constituted a technical panel and sought feedback from the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India to arrive at a decision.
The tiger, it seems, was in no mood to wait, though. During its entire stay inside the 12 acre safari, the animal consumed the feed arranged by the zoo authorities and chose its resting place and made no attempt to escape.