RAIPUR: A lonely tiger on Wednesday morning reached very close to Kasdol city, some 90 km east of Raipur, creating tense moments for the Chhattisgarh state forest department that deployed drones to stalk the wild big cat, chased after and finally rescued it using tranquilliser darts.
“We got information at around 7 am about the tiger moving towards Kasdol town. This tiger actually moved out from Barnawapara wildlife sanctuary via Kot village. Our two separate teams planned swift movement from different directions of the identified location.
There were two doctors pressed into action besides the drones—both normal and thermal that finally tracked the tiger with real-time images. Scores of people along with our team were following the route covered by the solitary yellow-brown coat-striped wild animal.
Our concern was to ensure both the tiger and the people should remain safe. Our doctor team that fortunately came close to the tiger, succeeded in tranquillising and rescued it,” Mayank Agrawal, divisional forest officer, Barnawapara sanctuary in Baloda Bazar district told The New Indian Express.
The tiger was first spotted in Barnawapara wildlife sanctuary in March this year.
“We were monitoring the movement of this tiger regularly for the last 8 months. This was the only tiger that was present in our Barnawapara sanctuary and migrated here in March from another region—may be Andhra or Odisha or Chhattisgarh’s Udanti-Sitanadi tiger reserve,” the DFO added.
The tiger, weighing over 250 kg, was carried by the forest team and released into the core area of the recently notified Guru Ghasidas-Tamor Pingla Tiger Reserve, some 300 km away from the spot where the migrating wild animal was rescued.
CM Vishnu Deo Sai praised the successful rescue operation, citing it as a significant achievement towards wildlife conservation in the state.