Angul: A team of officials of the State Forest department arrived at the Satkosia Sanctuary in Odisha’s Angul district with a 3-year-old male Royal Bengal Tiger from the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh in a special vehicle after a 24-hour journey on Thursday afternoon covering a distance of more than 500 km.
The big cat will be released into the Tiger Reserve in the core area at Raiguda range of Satkosia forest division after examining its health.
The Forest department has put up a special enclosure inside the core area of the sanctuary where the Bengal tiger would be kept. Besides, adequate food has been kept in stock to feed the big cat.
After keeping the tiger for some days inside the enclosure to get it acclimatized to the surroundings, it will be released in the wild. To monitor its movement, a GPS tracker would be fitted around its neck.
“After its successful movement in the habitat, arrangements would be made to bring five Royal Bengal tigers from Madhya Pradesh,” said Sandip Tripathy, Chief Wildlife Warden, Odisha.
The Odisha government has made allocation of around Rs 3 crore to release the Bengal Tigers in the forests. Besides, the Wildlife Institute of India will provide around Rs 5-6 crore towards technical assistance for keeping the tigers in the protected forest. The movement of the big royal cats inside the forest will be monitored through satellite.
It may be mentioned that the process of bringing the Bengal tiger from the Kanha National Park in the first week of June was finalised. But due to the strike by the Forest employees of the Madhya Pradesh government, the process was delayed by two weeks.
