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The roar is back in Bengal’s Buxa after 8 years: 3-yr-old tigress from Bihar released into reserve
The three-year-old tigress was released in the presence of Union environment, forest and climate change minister Bhupender Yadav and West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari.
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After an eight-year absence, Buxa Tiger Reserve is hearing the roar of a tiger again, with a three-year-old tigress from Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve released in its core zone on Friday, marking West Bengal’s first tiger reintroduction.
The three-year-old tigress was released in the presence of Union environment, forest and climate change minister Bhupender Yadav and West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari.
“Inspired by PM Shri @narendramodi ji’s push for landscape conservation and species protection, today we have fulfilled the significant promise to reintroduce tiger in Buxa. T138 has been brought from Valmiki Tiger Reserve from Bihar to Buxa,” Bhupender Yadav, Union environment, forest and climate change, wrote on X.
“Three more tigers will be released in the BTR in the next two months,” Adhikari said.
After its release, the tigress will be monitored through telemetry, camera trapping and field-based monitoring, which will allow foresters to assess its movement, adaptation, health and behaviour over the next few months.
Officials said that DNA analysis of scat in 2014 had shown that there were around 20 tigers left in BTR. In 2018, however, no tigers were found during the camera-trap exercise. During the same period, the tiger population increased in Manas National Park in Assam.
“The tiger population in BTR dwindled because of various reasons including habitat degradation and fragmentation, changes in land use and decline in prey availability. Experts opine that the BTR tigers moved to Manas,” said an official.
Created in 1983, the Buxa Tiger Reserve is contiguous with Phipsu Wildlife Sanctuary of Bhutan and Assam’s Manas National Park in the east. It serves as an international corridor for the migration of wild animals, including tigers and elephants.
Over the years, the prey base was increased by releasing more than 870 chital deer, and grasslands were restored. Camera traps recorded tigers in 2021, 2023 and 2026. The tiger photographed in 2023 was matched with a tiger from Manas Tiger Reserve in Assam.
Adhikari said that the state government has received a proposal from the Centre to identify around 2,000 acres adjacent to BTR and Manas National Park to come up with a world-class forest destination.
