BHUBANESWAR: Four-and-half years after suspending the country’s first big cat relocation project in Satkosia Tiger Reserve, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has finally given a green signal to the state government to resume the programme.
The Forest department's wildlife wing has planned to bring over a dozen tigers from the central India landscape to Satkosia, where the big cats have locally extirpated in recent years. The whole exercise will be spread over the next five years, department officials said.
Officials said, the nod for tiger reintroduction has been given on the basis of a proposal submitted by the wildlife wing and the report of the five-member committee of NTCA that visited Satkosia earlier in June to reassess the feasibility of re-initiating the project in the tiger reserve.
The proposal submitted by the state government in January this year has been approved by the technical committee of the NTCA subject to adherence of the SOP on active management of tigers in Satkosia and recommendations of the committee constituted for the purpose, they said.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forest & Head of Forest Force (PCCF) and chief wildlife warden Susanta Nanda said a proposal to resume the reintroduction of tigers in Satkosia Tiger Reserve was submitted to NTCA following the voluntary shifting of some of the villages in the protected area. However, the NTCA has laid down 15 conditions that Satkosia needs to meet before resuming the project.
As per the conditions, the project will be carried out with due consent from the locals and local public representatives. Other pre-requisites include, voluntary relocation by villages, prey augmentation, creation of inviolate space, capacity-building of staff and enhancement of protection measures.
Nanda said while steps are being taken to meet these conditions, the wildlife wing will also draw a five-year action plan and submit it to the NTCA to take up the project. After the plan is approved, tigers from the central India landscape will be translocated to the habitat.
Sources said the wildlife wing is mulling to introduce more than a dozen tigers to Satkosia spread over 963 sq km. Over 400 hectare of inviolate space has already been created, while five villages including one from core area have also been relocated.
Earlier, a pair of tigers - Sundari and Mahavir - was brought to Satkosia from Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh in 2018. However the project was suspended by NTCA in 2019 as Mahavir died and Sundari was sent back to Kanha after spending 28 months in the reserve’s Raigoda enclosure.