A female tiger cub, hand-raised at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) near central Assam's Kaziranga National Park, began its journey to a Chattisgarh zoo on Friday.

 "This cub being moved to Nandan Zoo in Raipur is the second hand-raised one after an adult male Tiger was sent to Van Vihar Zoo in Bhopal last year," Kaziranga park director and CWRC project leader Sanjib Kumar Bora said. "The tiger is in good health and is expected to contribute to the National Tiger Conservation Breeding programme in the zoo there."

Kaziranga forest guards found the cub while patrolling the park's Burapahar Range on October 21 last year. Several attempts were made to reunite the cub with its mother before shifting it to the CWRC, one-of-its-kind animal rehabilitation centre in the country.

The rehabilitation centre is run by International Fund for Animal Welfare-Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) in coordination with the Assam forest department.

According to WTI chief veterinarian NVK Ashraf, rehabilitation of hand-raised tigers is not popular in India as there are reports of the released tiger losing fear of humans. "The Raipur zoo expressed interest to have the cub and formally sent a letter through Central Zoo Authority following which we arranged the transfer," he said.

The cub is expected to reach Raipur by Monday after travelling 2,100km by train from Guwahati in a special cage.