BARIPADA/BHUBANESWAR : As it explored new forest landscape in neighbouring West Bengal, tigress Zeenat continued to keep staff of three states on their toes while Odisha wildlife wing banked on tranquilising the three-year-old big cat to bring it home.
A decent opportunity to dart the dispersing cat to relocate it back to Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) appears to be the only option with Zeenat continuously on the move.
About 130 forest personnel including a tiger squad from Mayurbhanj and expert team from Sundarbans have joined the search operation for the tigress that managed to escape the surveillance on multiple occasions, keeping forest officials of Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal on tenterhooks for the last two weeks.
The tigress first moved into Jharkhand forests and was later traced to a jungle in Belpahari range of Jhargram forest division in West Bengal early Friday. Sources said it has now moved to a forested area of Bandwan in Purulia via Lalgarh. The forest officials have made multiple attempts to tranquilise it but in vain.
The forest officials tracking the movement of Zeenat reportedly faced difficulties as the big cat roamed the landscape, covering about 25 km to 30 km area in a night. Prior to its entry into West Bengal, the tigress had also reportedly covered around 26 km a day.
The alleged disruption in transmission of signal from the radio collar is also reportedly making the big cat incommunicado at times.
“The forest team sent to Jharkhand to track Zeenat was immediately mobilised to West Bengal for constant monitoring in the neighbouring state,” said PCCF (wildlife) Prem Kumar Jha. Three teams, two from West Bengal and one from Odisha, are now tracing it and waiting for an enabling environment to carry out the tranquilisation, he added.
The teams from West Bengal include specialists from Sundarbans to assist officials for darting of the tigress, Jha said.
The PCCF (wildlife), however, said the disruption in transmission of signals did not persist long and they have been receiving signal about its location on an hourly basis.
Similipal field director Prakash Chand Gogineni said a strategy is underway to tranquilise the tigress and bring it back to the STR.
The female tigress, brought to STR from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Maharashtra, entered Jharkhand after exiting Similipal landscape on December 9.
Jamuna, the first tigress relocated to STR from TATR in October, also moved out of STR core and is now roaming in adjoining Kuldhia wildlife sanctuary. Jha said their teams are also tracking the movement of the 31-month-old tigress since last Sunday.