Tiger cub hope in Sariska

A relocated tiger couple has met in Sariska, raising hopes that the big cat population in the park will increase, while two new cubs have been born in Ranthambore.

Updated on: Dec 1, 2010, 23:47:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A relocated tiger couple has met in Sariska, raising hopes that the big cat population in the park will increase, while two new cubs have been born in Ranthambore.

"Rajasthan is sending some positive signals on the tiger population," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said, indicating the new tiger census to be announced in December will show increase in tiger population in India.

As of the last census in 2007, there were 1,411 tigers in the country.

The minister hopes that the tiger couple --- T-4, a male tiger and T-2, a female --- mates and Sariska gets its first litter after the tigers went missing from India's first tiger reserve.

Many wildlifers are not enthused, saying tigers coupled have mated earlier, but there were no cubs. The reason for hope this time is that the tigress is different from the one who had mated earlier and was relocated from Ranthambore in 2009.

"She is vocalising," Ramesh said, meaning she is ready for mating.

Her vocalising has caught the attention of the tiger, who had gone missing earlier this month and has now returned to be with her. Both of them were spotted together in Kalighatti area of Sariska reserve, considered auspicious for birth of cubs.

A team of scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India and Rajasthan forest department is monitoring the couple through radio collaring devices. If all goes well, the forest department officials expect Sariska to have cubs by next monsoon.

About 200 km south in Ranthambore, the reserve got two new cubs.

A relocated tiger was apparently poisoned in Sariska and tigers faced the ire of villagers in Ranthambore for killing a woman. Both the incidents happened earlier this month.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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