COIMBATORE: For the first time in decades, the presence of a tiger has been recorded in the watershed region of the Noyyal river in the Boluvampatti forest range.
The presence of a healthy male tiger presence was confirmed by camera trap images recently. This is the southernmost spotting of a tiger in the Western Ghats.
After field staff had noticed signs of tiger movement in the interior forests of the Boluvampatti range, the WWF and Coimbatore forest division set up a few camera traps as part of a joint tiger monitoring programme.
Within a week, the tiger was spotted and its images captured on the camera traps.
"This is the first time in decades that a tiger has been spotted in the watershed region of the Noyyal river,” said I Anwardeen Additional Principal Chief Conservator of forest Coimbatore Circle.
The tiger population in the Coimbatore forest division is estimated to be 10-12.
Anwardeen said the presence of the tiger was a sign that forests in the division were in good ecological health.
“This is also an indicator of the quality of protection being offered by the forest staff," he added.
The movement of tigers into the Coimbatore division also suggests that the tiger breeding areas of Mudumalai and Sathyamangalam tiger reserve have good ecological integrity.
Tigers are successfully breeding and dispersing into neighbouring forests from there and settling down in areas with good prey abundance.
The forest department has also released pictures of a leopard and sloth bear taken on camera traps in the same area to highlight the quality of wildlife habitats in parts of the Coimbatore division.