NAGPUR: A four-month-old tiger cub has strayed into Garada under Goregaon forest range in Gondia forest division, causing a flutter among forest officials and also raised a question whether the mother tigress is missing.
The area were the cub was sighted falls in the buffer zone of Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve.
Generally, tigresses don’t leave such small cubs alone. The cub looked fragile and showed sluggish movement. It was sighted in the bushes alongside a minor irrigation farmside canal by locals on Thursday morning.
The matter was reported to Goregaon RFO Pravin Sathawane, who was not forthcoming to give details. Till evening no efforts were taken to rescue the cub and by then the animal had escaped amid confusion.
The cub is being sighted alone for the past 10 days. Locals said the solitary cub was also sighted in the nearby Pindkepar area five days ago.
P Kalyan Kumar, chief conservator of forests (CCF), Nagpur, told TOI that though the cub has not been recorded with the mother in one frame recently, it is too early to say that the tigress is missing. “The cub was recorded with the mother in Rengepaar 15-20 days ago,” said the CCF.
“The wildlife and territorial compartments in the said landscape are overlapping and we have launched an intensive search for the tigress by both the departments. Capturing the cub immediately is not advisable before we take efforts to reunite it with mother. We will have to wait for a couple of days. We have intensified camera trapping and patrolling,” said Kalyan Kumar.
In view of rampant electrocution in Goregaon and forest areas around the fringes of Nagzira and absence of anti-electrocution drives by the department, there can be many possibilities.
TOI has procured power tripping data from January 1, 2022, till February 2, 2022, of 11KV feeder line from MSEDCL sources. It shows lines tripped almost on a daily basis in Hirapur and Mundipar where there is presence of tigers.
“On some days the lines tripped several times in the night and evening hours. This is a clear indication that despite several electrocution cases in the past in the landscape, no lessons have been learned. There is no joint patrolling as directed by the chief minister Uddhav Thackeray himself,” admits MSEDCL officials on anonymity.
The Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR) is having a full-fledged Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF) and a Rapid Rescue Unit (RRU) and several NGOs.
Moreover, the 1,241sqkm NNTR buffer zone was notified in September 2016. However, as per the NTCA guidelines it should have been mandatorily put under the administrative control of the tiger reserve but even after six years, no decision has been taken.
