Bhubaneswar: A day after Zeenat arrived in Odisha after being captured in West Bengal, Forest and Environment Minister Ganesh Ram Singh Khuntia on Thursday said that a decision to bring three more Royal Bengal Tigers will be taken after proper evaluation of the current status of those translocated to the state last year.
“There were plans to relocate five Royal Bengal Tigers from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to bolster big cat population in Odisha. Two have already been translocated to Similipal Tiger Reserve. The decision to reintroduce three additional tigers to Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary will be taken after evaluating its climatic conditions and once Zeenat and Jamuna adopt and acclimatise to the new environment in Similipal,” he told reporters.
Two tigress and a tiger are to be brought from Madhya Pradesh to Debrigarh, sources said.
Odisha is working on providing a well-managed and sustainable environment for the majestic cats. It has also been engaging local communities in the conservation efforts.
Meanwhile, Zeenat, which was brought back to STR after it travelled over 300 km and three states, will be released into the southern part of the reserve. It is currently being kept in a soft enclosure of one hectare in Jenabil range in the reserve’s southern division.
The three-year-old tigress was translocated to Similipal from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra to improve the gene pool and released to the core area of the reserve’s north division on November 25, 2024. But it left STR on December 8 and was eventually tranquilised on December 29 in forests of West Bengal.
After Zeenat, tigress two-and-a-half-year-old Jamuna, the first tigress to have been relocated from Maharashtra, also left for the Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary in Balasore district, about 30km from the Similipal, on December 15, leaving the forest officials worried. But it came back to the reserve on its own after a week.
Notably, 30 tigers and eight cubs were found in 47 forest divisions of Odisha in the survey conducted for the first time during 2023-24. Of these, 27 were found in the STR, while Keonjhar territorial and Keonjhar wildlife, Paralakhemundi territorial, and Hirakud wildlife had one tiger each.
