RADIO telemetry studies of wild animals using radio collars for tracking and learning about animal movements and behavior to mitigating human-animal conflicts has become a common practice in Forest Department. Maharashtra Forest Department is also using this technology to track wild animals, especially tigers, in dense forest. The collar can provide details about the wild animal for years if it is tied properly. Even National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has a protocol to collar a wild animal and the entire Forest Department works according to it. However, on Saturday a sub adult tigress NT-3 that was brought from Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) and was released on April 11 in the wild of Nawegaon Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR) as a part of Tiger Conservation Translocation (TCT) programme by the Forest Department, went missing. The tigress somehow managed to get rid of the GPS collar that was tied to her neck.

 

The Forest Department found the radio collar abaondoned in Compartment No 95 in the core area of NNTR. It was second such incident of a tiger missing and abandoned radio collar in Vidarbha. Earlier, in 2016, Seven-year-old Jai, the beloved monarch who had ruled Nagpur’s Umred Karhandla wildlife sanctuary ever since he arrived there in 2013, was also missing after removing his radio collar. Rescuers, wildlife experts and volunteers conducted extensive search operation for months but he never tracked by the department. The rescuers have expanded their search for Jai to include about 350 villages, from Bor in Wardha district to Chandrapur’s Brahmapuri to the Navegaon Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR), from where Jai had come to Umred in 2013. Now, NNTR once again came in limelight after this incident as the NT-3 tigress is missing within hours of her release in the wild of NNTR. “Missing of a radio collared tigress without its collar is a matter of concern for the forest department. The question is that how the tigress removed the collar which was fixed on her neck?” said a senior wildlife researcher on condition of anonymity.

 

“If the collar was fixed loosely over the neck then it raises questions over the department about their expertise of collaring a wild animal. The GPS tracker itself is a state-of-the-art gadget and it is very expensive too,” said the researcher. As per the information, now the forest officials joined by VHF monitoring team were trying to trace the location of the tigress, though it’s assumed that the tigress might have freed itself of the GPS collar as it was found functioning and there were marks of tiger nails on it. It may be noted that to check man-animal conflict incidents in area where tiger population had increased, under the TCT programme Forest Department is identifying the wild cats, capturing them to release in other reserves having big potential and where their population is less. On May 20, 2023, two tigresses NT-1 and NT-2 brought from Bramhapuri range were released in NNTR and out of them NT-1 had ventured outside and migrated to the neighboring Madhya Pradesh, whereas NT-2 had settled in the reserve. The department has failed to get the whereabouts of NT-3 tigress.

 

Speaking to ‘The Hitavada’, Pramodkumar Panchbhai, Deputy Conservator of Forest and Field Director of NNTR told that there is more possibility that the tigress was able to take the collar out. “Looking at the growing age of the big cat we had kept the collar loose and that may have helped the animal in dropping the collar. We are making search and will reinstalled the satellite GPS collar once the big cat is recaptured,” he added. Honorary Wildlife Warden Sawan Bahekar said that in such translocation there are some risk factors and that department had to consider. The NT-3 tigress was less than two years of age and was growing in size. Her smaller head structure may have helped the big cat to drop the collar. “Now with a possibility that the big cat may venture anywhere in and out of the reserve, in buffer or core areas, department’s team had been deployed to search the location of the tigress. The department would also take the help of NGO`s and other stakeholders, that will help in monitoring the things more properly and ensure safety of the animal as well as humans,” Bahekar opined.