Before translocation of tigers, 6 elephants to be brought to Rajaji reserve from Karnataka
The elephants will be brought -- a proposal of Rs 25 lakh has been submitted under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) for their transportation -- to supervise the translocated tigers
Before translocating tigers to the Rajaji Tiger Reserve (RTR) in Uttarakhand, the park management has another important task at hand -- bringing six elephants from Karnataka by the end of next month.
The elephants will be brought -- a proposal of Rs 25 lakh has been submitted under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) for their transportation -- to supervise the translocated tigers. The chief wildlife warden of Karnataka has written to the Rajaji director, giving approval to the project.
“Before tigers, we need to bring elephants so that we could monitor the big cats,” Rajaji director Sanatan Sonkar told Hindustan Times.
This is not the first time forest department officials will undertake this task. Earlier, nine elephants were brought from Karnataka to Corbett Tiger Reserve covering 2500km through Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Initially the plan was to bring 12 elephants to Corbett, but three of them were sick and couldn’t be transported. Of the nine currently at the reserve, seven are adults and two cubs. The elephants were brought for better patrolling in protected areas.
Elephants will be of immense help in Rajaji as several ranges of the reserve are risked by human intervention, officials said.
“The idea of tiger translocation is to increase the population of big cats in the habitat. Certainly, the reserve is porous and we don’t want to repeat the problems that afflicted Sariska and Panna,” chief wildlife warden Digvijay Singh Khati said. “Therefore, before we translocate tigers, we need to have elephants in the field for vigilance and patrolling.”
Sariska and Panna reported disappearance of tigers, following which big cats were translocated to the reserves.
In Rajaji, the habitat of tigers was encroached by forest dwellers and the management is currently making it secure. The reserve has two forest department elephants and officials are making shelter houses in Chilla and Motichur for the ones to be brought in.
The hill state reported 1839 elephants in this year’s census, and Karnataka 6049. But the Uttarakhand forest department wants domesticated elephants.
“In Karnataka, elephants are an integral part of families and mahouts. These are trained elephants. Such elephants can be easily adopted,” Khati said. “Mahouts of Karnataka will come here and stay for a certain period to train them in our language.”