Bhubaneswar: As many 55 tigers including seven Royal Bengal Tigers (RBTs) and 760 elephants died in Odisha over a decade.
This information was given by Forest, Environment and Climate Change Minister Ganeshram Sing Khuntia in the State Assembly today.
While replying to a question by BJP lawmaker Tankadhar Tripathy, the Forest Minister said as many as 55 tigers died in the state during 2014-15 and 2023-24 fiscals, while d 760 elephant deaths were reported in the State during 2013-14 and 2023-24.
Out of 760 elephant deaths reported in the past 11 years, 41 elephants were killed by poachers while remaining elephants died due to various other reasons. During the last 11 years, 1,145 people were also killed in elephant attacks, he stated.
Shri Khuntia said 48 leopards and seven tigers died due to various reasons, including poaching, accidents and natural deaths in the last 10 years.
During the period, two Royal Bengal Tigers died of poaching, while three were killed in various accidents like drowning, slipping from mountains and infighting. One tiger died of natural causes. The reason behind the death of another tiger is unknown, he said.
21 leopards died due to poaching, four due to electrocution, two in train accidents, three in road accidents, five due to diseases and four naturally, the minister said in his statement.
Similarly, three leopards were killed in various types of accidents like drowning, slipping from mountains and infighting among the wild animals, while six leopards died of unknown reasons, he said.
The state government brought two Royal Bengal Tigers (a male and a female) from Madhya Pradesh to Odisha in the past decade. No tiger has been translocated to any other forests outside the state during the period, he said.
The minister said that a total of two Royal Bengal Tigers (RBTs) died in the Similipal Tiger Reserve (south) during the years 2023-24, while one died in 2017-18.
Two other RBTs, one in Bargarh and the other in Satkosia, died during the 2018-19 fiscal.
Similarly, a Royal Bengal Tiger died in the Bolangir forest division during the financial year 2016-17 and another such death was reported in 2022-23 in the Keonjhar Wildlife Division, he said.
The forest minister also said there were 173 RBTs in Odisha, as per estimation done through the pugmark method in 2002.
For the first time, the all-India tiger estimation using camera traps technique was done in 2006, in which 45 tigers were found in Odisha. As the camera trap technique is far different from the pugmark method, no comparison can be drawn between the estimations, he noted.
As per the state-level tiger estimation conducted in 2024, 27 tigers were found in Odisha, of which 24 tigers were found in the Similipal Tiger Reserve, while Keonjhar territorial and Keonjhar wildlife, Paralakhemundi, and Hirakud Wildlife have one tiger each.Besides, eight tiger cubs in the Similipal Tiger Reserve were also counted during the census, he said.