Tigress Sundari to be relocated from Odisha to Madhya Pradesh in a month
In December last year, the National Tiger Conservation Authority had asked the Odisha government to send back Sundari from Satkosia and accused the Odisha forest and wildlife department of making a mess of the monitoring and management of the relocated tigress.
More than two years after a tigress was brought from Madhya Pradesh to Odisha under India’s first inter-state relocation exercise of tigers, the Odisha government said on Wednesday that it will return the big cat in a month.
Chief Wildlife Warden of Odisha, Hari Shankar Upadhyay said though shifting of the tigress has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Tiger Conservation Authority would begin the process in a month after assessing the situation.
Tigress Sundari was brought from the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh in June 2018 as part of the inter-state tiger translocation project and released into Satkosia Tiger Reserve in August the same year. However it was shifted to an enclosure in the tiger reserve after it killed a 45-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man living inside the reserve in September 2018 triggering violence by locals who burnt the forest department’s boats and beat house.
Mahabir, the first tiger relocated from a tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh in June 2018 died due to metal snares laid by poachers in Satkosia Tiger Reserve that caused a deep wound on its neck. Its carcass was found under a bush in the tiger reserve.
In December last year, the National Tiger Conservation Authority had asked the Odisha government to send back Sundari from Satkosia and accused the Odisha forest and wildlife department of making a mess of the monitoring and management of the relocated tigress.
The tigress relocated from Bandhavgarh tiger reserve of MP under inter-state relocation exercise of tigers was not monitored and managed as per the standard operating procedure set by it, the NTCA had alleged.
“Tigress T-2(Sundari) cannot be allowed to be kept in a small enclosure for any longer time. Therefore, in interest of Tiger Conservation, Tigress T-2 shall be withdrawn and brought to Ghorela centre at Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, with immediate effect for re-wilding and subsequent release to suitable habitat,” the NTCA had written to Odisha.