BHUBANESWAR: AMID growing concern over Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR)’s closed population, possible entry of a male tiger into the protected area has brought great excitement to forest officials.
The male tiger which has come to the state after traversing over 1,000 km from the Central India landscape has been sighted in the close vicinity of STR. If it makes the reserve its home, the prospects of improving the genetic diversity in the protected area will get a huge boost.
PCCF (Wildlife) Susanta Nanda on Sunday said the male tiger travelled across three states from Central India and has been camera-trapped close to the tiger reserve. “This is an exiting prospect of adding to the gene pool of the Similipal tiger landscape. It is also a sign of big cats regaining their lost homeland in the state,” he said.
A senior forest official from the STR confirmed that it is the same Royal Bengal Tiger (RBT) that had been first camera-trapped in Bonai forest division of Sundargarh district in March. The details of the tiger match with the National Tiger Database of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). It is confirmed that the big cat has travelled from the Sanjay-Dubri Tiger Reserve (SDTR) in Madhya Pradesh (MP). After Bonai, the big cat has now been sighted in a forest of Keonjhar, close to Similipal, he added.
“It would hardly take a day for the big cat to enter Similipal core and if that happens it would bring huge prospect for the tiger reserve in improving the gene pool of its tiger population,” the officer said.
He also confirmed availability of safe passage for the RBT to move into the tiger reserve. In-breeding and a closed population, with almost no migratory flow either in or out have emerged as a looming threat for the tiger population of Similipal. The spike in the number of pseudo-melanistic tigers, that now constitutes close to half of Similipal’s total tiger population, has also been referred by the experts as an indication of lack of genetic diversity within the population.
Keeping this in view, the Forest department had written to NTCA in February this year seeking its permission to introduce female tigers from other landscapes.
Experts, on the other hand, said facilitating such long dispersals by securing safe passage for wildlife movement, is the best way of improving gene pool diversity and reviving big cat population in landscapes where it is difficult to take up tiger translocation projects.