No plan to transqualise tigress who crossed into Jharkhand, says Odisha official
STR field director Prakash Chand Gogineni said the radio-collared tigress was traced to the forests of Jharkhand.
Tigress Zeenat, who was translocated last month from Maharashtra to the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) of Odisha’s Mayurbhanj to improve its genetic diversity, has crossed into the forests of neighbouring Jharkhand, wildlife officials said on Thursday.
The tigress has moved out of the reserve in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district and entered Chakulia forest range of Jharkhand, 30 km from Odisha borders. The tigress was released into the wild in the tiger reserve on November 24.
Field director of STR, Prakash Chand Gogineni, said the team tracking the movement of the radio-collared tigress has traced her location to the forests of Jharkhand.
“Tigress Zeenat is now located in Jharkhand after leaving the Similipal area. She reached a forest near Sidho-Kanho Chowk in Chiabandi under Bhatkunda Panchayat of Chakulia range in Jharkhand by crossing a railway track. Her movement is being monitored by a team from Odisha,” said Gogineni, who is also Regional Chief Conservator of Forests (RCCF).
Gogineni responded to speculation that Odisha wanted to transqualise the tiger, saying no decision had been taken to intervene.
“It is completely normal for tigers to roam around before marking its territory. Tigers normally prefer dense forests and the area where it is roaming does not have dense forest unlike Similipal. So we are optimistic that the tigress would return to Similipal. However, our team is keeping a watch on its movement,” he said.
Officials said tigress ‘Jamuna’ brought from Maharashtra on October 27 had been in the Similipal core area for the last month.
The translocation was an effort to expand the genetic diversity of Similipal tigers amid worries that the gene pool of the reserve was narrowing. Two and half years ago, researchers, including scientists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru found that a single mutation in the gene Transmembrane Aminopeptidase Q (Taqpep) caused the tigers in Similipal develop black stripes.
The genetic analysis of other tiger populations in the country and computer simulations suggested that the melanistic tigers in Similipal may have arisen from a very small founding population of tigers and inbreeding.
The state forest department estimates that the tiger reserve, the largest in the state, has 27 tigers. Of them, 13 adult tigers (seven females and six males) were found to be melanistic.
The translocation of the two tigresses comes six years after the country’s first inter-state tiger relocation programme in Satkosia tiger reserve of Odisha did not succeed.
Tigress ‘Sundari’ was brought from the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh to Satkosia tiger reserve of Odisha in June 2018 as part of the inter-state tiger translocation project and released into Satkosia Tiger Reserve in August the same year. However it was shifted to a enclosure in the tiger reserve after it killed a 45-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man living inside the reserve in September 2018 triggering violence by locals who burnt the forest department’s boats and beat house.