Odisha: Similipal, Satkosia Improve Reserves’ Management Score Amid Decline In Tiger Occupancy

Bhubaneswar: Management of 12 tiger reserves, including Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, has been rated as excellent in the latest assessment by the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

Similipal has secured the 11th position with a management effectiveness evaluation (MEE) score of 90.15 per cent in the fifth cycle of MEE-TR in 2022. This is a huge jump since 2018 when it was rated as just good with MEE score of 72.66 per cent.

Similipal Tiger Reserve along with Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh was also rated as top performer in terms of ‘context’ and got a perfect score, according to the fifth MEE of Tiger Reserves of India report released on Sunday by PM Narendra Modi along with the all-India tiger estimates.

Similarly, Satkosia too has improved its position from good (67.97 per cent) in the fourth cycle to very good (75 per cent) in the current cycle of MEE-TR. The assessment was done on 33 criteria, and each reserve was asked to evaluate itself.

The report, however, stated that tiger occupancy had declined in Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in the Central and Eastern Ghat landscape. Tiger population had locally extirpated from Satkosia and some protected areas in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.Wildlife habitats, protected areas and corridors in the Central and Eastern Ghat region, faced threats of habitat encroachment, illegal hunting, human-wildlife conflict apart from mining and expanding linear infrastructure, it said.

“The genetically unique and small population of tigers in Similipal is also of high conservation priority in the landscape,” the report noted.

The state and TR-wise numbers of the big cats is likely to be announced after a month. As per 2018 estimation, the tiger count in Odisha stood at 28, unchanged since 2014.