History made at Sariska

The tiger has landed and it is a male.

Yes, after a gap of four long years the tiger made a comeback to the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Alwar district of Rajasthan on Saturday. The event made conservation history, as this is the first time the wild tiger is being re-introduced into a reserve anywhere in the country. Sariska, a sanctuary brought under Project Tiger in 1978, had lost all its tigers in 2004-05 to suspected poaching.

“It is a historic moment. The country has done it while others have failed,” announced R. N. Mehrotra, Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan. “This kind of wild-to-wild re-location has not taken place anywhere else,” he said.

“The released tiger is in good shape. The operation was successful in every respect but for the small hiccups caused by the vagaries of the weather,” Mr. Mehrotra revealed.

“The effort is the first step towards successful re-establishment of tigers in Sariska,” said Rajesh Gopal, Director of the National Tiger Conservation Authority of India. The plan is to release a total of five tigers in Sariska over two years. The next tiger, a female, is expected to be released in a week while the third, also a tigress, some time in winter.

Saturday’s pick of a male tiger was a chance thing as according to the plan a female was to be introduced first.

It took 35 to 40 minutes for the operation in which the MI-17 Indian Air Force helicopter took off with a tranquillized male tiger in a custom-made cage from the Anantpura helipad inside the Ranthambhore National Park in Sawai Madhopur district to the helipad built near the Nayapani tiger holding area inside Sariska.

Apart from the dazed tiger, two experts from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Mr. Mehrotra, Rajpal Singh, a member of the Rajasthan’s Empowered Committee on Forests and Wildlife, flew in the helicopter, besides the six-member crew. The chopper took off at 11-45 a.m. and landed at around 12-20 p.m.

The tiger had regained consciousness by the time it was wheeled out of the helicopter to the enclosure some 200 metres away for its release. The feline walked into its new home with a kind of elegance only typical of tigers.

“In about four hours we carried out the exercise. From darting the tiger in its habitat in Ranthambhore to releasing it in Sariska everything went off with clockwork precision,” informed P. R. Sinha, Director WII, who supervised the operation along with experts from the National Tiger Conservation Authority, Rajasthan Forest Department, and World Wide Find for Nature (WWF), Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Indian Air Force.

“Sariska was a prestige issue for all involved,” Dr. Sinha said, pointing out that the problems which might have led to the extinction of the tiger population in Sariska had been looked into. “There are more things to be done. We are in the process. One village has been moved out of Sariska to everybody’s satisfaction while four more may follow suit,” he said.

Rajasthan Minister for Forests and Environment Pratap Singh Singhvi and Environment and Forests Secretary Meena Singh were witnesses to the historic occasion though the media was kept out of the scene.


source :
http://www.hindu.com/