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1,700 kms, 190 days, and he may have finally found a home
His name is T1C1. He is three-years old. He has travelled around 1700 km, on foot, over the past six months. And he may have finally found a home.
His name is T1C1. He is three-years old. He has travelled around 1700 km, on foot, over the past six months. And he may have finally found a home.
The sub-adult tiger, which has been making the headlines over the past few weeks, for walking on (and on, and on) in search of a home, may have finally established his new territory at the Dyanganga Wildlife Sanctuary (DWS) in Buldhana, a tiger scientist monitoring the animal over the past 11 months said.
T1C1 is Dyanganga’s first tiger, and was spotted by tourists on Thursday. The tiger has travelled 300 km more than the distance between Delhi and Mumbai (1,416 km) in over 190 days, making it the longest ever recorded movement of a tiger in India monitored using a radio-collar.
Bilal Habib, researcher from Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, who radio-collared the tiger in February 2019 has been tracking his movement since he left Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary (TPWL) in Yavatmal district on June 26, 2019. Habib shared T1C1’s latest image from DWS, and a complete map of his journey so far with Hindustan Times. So far the animal has covered eight districts and four wildlife sanctuaries in Maharasthra and Telangana (see graphic for location wise journey).
On December 27, HT reported that T1C1 moved northwestwards from Dnyanganga to Ajanta hilly regions spread across Aurangabad in Jalna district covering over 1,500 km since he began his journey from Tipeshwar in June. “Subsequently, the animal began moving back towards DWS but in the process, he began exploring other areas and started moving slightly eastwards towards Melghat Tiger Reserve. However, after covering 8-10km in the direction of Melghat, he made his way back to DWS,” said Habib. “The tiger entered DWS first on November 29 and left on December 12. Now he is back to the same area. He has now explored all nearby areas. There is huge possibility that this is his final territory.”
Habib suggested that once it was confirmed that DWS is indeed T1C1’s territory, the forest department should explore the possibility of releasing female tigers there. “This tiger has shown us that this historic range, home to tigers for centuries, in the central Indian landscape towards Maharashtra.... in spite of increasing development ... still conducive for tiger movement. We need to ensure these fragmented forest zones, and the overall corridordoes not deteriorate any further.”
Nitin Kakodkar, principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), Maharashtra forest department said, “The tiger does not know that DWS is a protected area except for the presence of some animals other than cattle and waterbodies. We hope that this is the final destination, and then we can think of releasing a female there for breeding, and hopefully have a good tiger population in the future.”
Signals received from the radio-collar showed that the animal moved mostly during the night across forests, agricultural fields, and highways but did not enter into any conflict with humans except isolated instances of cattle kills. “During his travel, the tiger was spotted only on three occasions – once by the forest department in Washim, and twice in DWS by tourists. This means tigers can move in this landscape without being noticed,” said Kakodkar. “It is however, in a way scary for me personally as the chief wildlife warden as I kept fearing there may be some issue of conflict but luckily it has not happened so far. Looking at it from a scientific point of view, the study has given great results.”
WII and the forest department plan to initiate a micro-level study to understand T1C1’s location-wise dispersal pattern to further understand the animal’s behaviour. “If this animal were not radio collared, we would have never understood the journey. However, we still don’t know what routes he picked and why. That will help us understand what protection measures are required. They can be implemented if such movements happen repeatedly,” added Kakodkar.
Male tigers need 60-80 sq. km as their territory. Senior forest officers said that while male tigers can walk long distances, there are limitations for female tigers that are generally found close to the habitat they are born in. “Walking average 8-10 km per day is not new thing in male tigers. Longer walks while defending territories or especially during establishment of new territories are a common thing,” said Ravikiran Govekar, field director, Pench Tiger Reserve.
He added that T1C1’s journey may not be all that rare.
“Many tigers that are not radio-collared may be covering similar distances, which we don’t record. T1C1 has however opened up newer vistas of (understanding) tiger movements in human dominated areas, and gives an insight into the urge or drive for finding territory, mate and habitat.”
