ANGUL/BHUBANESWAR: Once wild and carefree, Sundari spent an agonizing two years of captivity in an enclosure at Satkosia Tiger Reserve, which she was supposed to make her new home, far away from Madhya Pradesh. However, the tigress would soon return where she belonged after Madhya Pradesh High Court directed that the big cat be withdrawn from Satkosia and shifted to Kanha Tiger Reserve.
Disposing of a writ petition on rewilding of Sundari, the Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh HC comprising acting Chief Justice Sanjay Yadav and Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla upheld the order of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to shift the animal from its enclosure at Raigoda in Satkosia to Ghorela centre inside Kanha TR in MP.
Taking note of NTCA’s assessment report on the tiger re-introduction programme at Satkosia, the Madhya Pradesh HC ruled that the tigress (identified as T-2) cannot be allowed to be kept in a small enclosure for a longer time. “In the interest of tiger conservation, T-2 shall be withdrawn and brought to Ghorela with immediate effect for rewilding and subsequent release to suitable habitat,” the ruling said.
The HC also directed that tiger translocation programme at Satkosia remain suspended till ground situation in the field improved as per NTCA protocol and subsequent feasibility study.The court also rejected the appeal for a judicial enquiry into the decision to translocate the tigress, stating, the same has been addressed by NTCA.
Disposing of the petition, the HC observed that the answers on rewilding of the tigress have been answered by NTCA. The petition was filed by Red Lynx Confederation, a non profit registered with Delhi.
With this, Sundari’s journey in Odisha may well have come to an end. As part of India’s first tiger re-introduction programme, she was translocated from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in MP and released into Satkosia on August 18, 2018.
The tigress was released into Satkosia shortly after tiger Mahavir, which was brought from Kanha Reserve Forest. As the tiger re-introduction ran into resistance from villages located on the fringes of Satkosia, Sundari also had a face-off with humans which ended in death of two villagers. As tempers frayed and even spilled onto the roads, the tigress was tranquillised on November 6 and shifted to the enclosure at Raigoda. Mahavir was found dead with a snare around his neck on November 15, 2018.Her fate uncertain and a prospective partner dead, Sundari’s case kept swinging from Odisha Forest Department, which had spectacularly failed in executing the project, to its MP counterpart.
In June, the NTCA had asked the MP Government to shift her from Satkosia after its wildlife wing expressed reluctance to restore Sundari back to her original landscape. The then Member Secretary of NTCA Anup Kumar Nayak had directed to shift the tigress either to Bandhavgarh or Kanha where they have facilities for re-wilding big cats.