Baripada: Days after tigress Zeenat moved out of Odisha’s Similipal and ventured into Jharkhand, tigress Jamuna too has reportedly left the tiger reserve and entered the Kuladiha Wildlife Sanctuary in Balasore district.
Sources said big cat Jamuna strayed into the Kuladiha Wildlife Sanctuary on Sunday night. Like Zeenat, Jamuna too was recently relocated to Odisha from the Tadoba-Andheri Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra. On November 9, Jamuna was released into the core area of the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) in Mayurbhanj district.
Earlier, after her arrival on October 28, the two-and-a-half-year-old tigress spent time in a soft enclosure in Similipal National Park premises spanning around two hectares, where she made her first hunt on October 31, demonstrating her adaptability and health. Soon after the forest authorities released it into the STR’s core area.
While forest officials were busy tracking movements of Zeenat for the last 8-9 days in Jharkhand forests and hoping it would soon return to Similipal, now Jamuna too abandoning the National Park is likely to double their challenge.
Speaking to media on the development, Regional Chief Wildlife Warden and Field Director of Tiger Conservation Project, PC Gogineni said the two big cats are being tracked and their movements are monitored with close vigil.
Earlier, Odisha government has stated that to increase tiger population in the state’s forests both Zeenat and Jamuna were relocated from Maharashtra. But now both Zeenat and Jamuna moving out of Similipal National Forests has surely raised concerns about the viability of these efforts, wildlife lovers stated.
On the contrary, wildlife experts feel lack of suitable habitats and struggle for food might have driven the big cats out of Similipal National Park. The state government needs to tackle these challenges and take requisite steps to boost the ongoing drive to boost tiger population in Odisha forests, they suggested.
However, this is not the first time the Odisha government has taken steps to relocate Royal Bengal Tigers (RBTs) from other states to Odisha. In 2018, a tigress named ‘Sundari’ was relocated to Odisha’s Satkosia Tiger Reserve, but after reports of her attacking locals, she was sent back to Madhya Pradesh. That also ended the first-ever effort in inter-state translocation of tiger in a failure.
