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Tiger sighted for third time above 7,000 ft in Bengal’s Neora Valley
The West Bengal forest department is yet to analyse the images captured in the past three years and cannot say whether there are multiple tigers in Neora Valley or a single one that has been spotted.
A Bengal tiger was caught on camera last month above 7,000 ft at Neora Valley National Park in Kalimpong district of north Bengal, making it the third sighting of the big cat since 2017.
A tiger was first spotted in the region in January 2017 by a car driver who took photos of the big cat. Later, the same tiger was caught on a trail camera installed by the forest department across the 88-sq km the national park in January 2018.
“On December 18, 2019, a trail camera captured a tiger. We are yet to analyse the image. We cannot say right now if it is a male or a female,” said Ravi Kant Sinha, principal chief conservator of forests and chief wildlife warden of West Bengal.
“A thorough analysis of all images captured in the past three years is yet to be done. So, it is not possible for us to say if there are multiple tigers or the same one is being spotted,” Sinha added.
The national park, which is a virgin forest, is in the UNESCO’s tentative list of world heritage sites since 2009. The state government wants the status of a tiger reserve for the national park but the Centre has not approved the proposal yet. Bengal presently has two tiger reserves, Sunderbans in south Bengal and Buxa in north Bengal.
A senior official of the forest department said that despite repeated spotting of a tiger at Neora Valley it is difficult for the park to attain the status of a tiger reserve because of its small size.
The Buxa Tiger Reserve, where mostly leopards and clouded leopards have been sighted, has a core area of 390 sq km and a total area of 760 sq km. It is almost nine times bigger than Neora Valley.
Even the Bor Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, the smallest tiger reserve in the country, has a core area of 138 square kilometres, the official said.
