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‘Evidence’ of tiger’s presence found near PTR after 15 months
Strap: Forest officials came across pug mark of a tigress in Lohardaga district, close to Palamau Tiger Reserve Evidence of a big cat’s presence was recently found in Lohardaga district, adjacent to Palamau Tiger Reserve (PTR), for the first time in over 15 months after a tigress was found dead in the reserve in February last year, forest officials said on Monday
Strap: Forest officials came across pug mark of a tigress in Lohardaga district, close to Palamau Tiger Reserve
Evidence of a big cat’s presence was recently found in Lohardaga district, adjacent to Palamau Tiger Reserve (PTR), for the first time in over 15 months after a tigress was found dead in the reserve in February last year, forest officials said on Monday.
State chief wildlife warden Rajiv Ranjan said, “Pug mark of a tigress was found at Kisko block of Lohardaga district on May 25. Forest extension of this district touches the PTR forest. So, we are suspecting the tigress may have travelled to Lohardaga from PTR.”
When asked if the pug mark will be sent to Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for confirmation, Ranjan said, “There is no need to send it to WII, as we have the expertise to identify if it of a tiger’s or not. On the basis of our examination, we can certainly say it is a tigress.”
In a bid to collect more concrete evidence, the forest department has provided 10 trap cameras to Lohardaga forest division and asked PTR officials to install cameras on possible routes. “We have also installed cameras at spots where cattle were killed in Lohardaga. However, no image has not been captured till now. We have also deputed teams to track pug marks of the tigress.”
Residents of Salaiya Panchayat under Kisko block in Lohardaga found intermittent killing of their cattle in the last week of May. They claimed that around five cattle were killed in past one month by big cats.
Following the complaints, the forest department sent a team to the village for inspection, which found the tigress’ pug mark, Lohardaga divisional forest officer (DFO) Arvind Kumar said.
DFO (buffer area) of PTR, Mukesh Kumar, who led the team, said, “We interrogated the person, who claimed to have seen the tiger. According to his statement, it was understood that he knew the difference between a leopard and a tiger.”
The pug mark was four inches long and rectangular in shape, indicating that it was of a tigress, the official said. “Size of a leopard’s pug mark is three inches,” Kumar said.
The development has raised hopes among officials and wildlife lovers about presence of tigers in the “tiger-less” reserve.The All India Tiger Estimation (AITE) in its 2018 report did not record a single tiger in the reserve, spread over 1129.93 square kilometres. However, an elderly tigress was found dead in the reserve on February 15 last year reportedly following clash with a bison.
“The reserve has presence of tigers for sure. It is our fault that we are not able to reach them because of many reasons including dense forest, vast spread and some limitations due to presence of left-wing extremists. The next tiger census is scheduled in 2022. We will try to cover the census properly this time,” said the chief wildlife warden.
Meanwhile, the reserve authorities recently concluded an animal assessment drive in PTR. Officials said the details of the assessment are expected in a week.
