Bhubaneswar: With Ace Wildlife Conservator, Susanta Nanda is at helm, Odisha has added another plume to its fledging cap of Wildlife Conservation.
PCCF Wildlife, Shri Nanda has been actively trying hard for addition of a healthy tigress to the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) in Mayurbhanj district.
Thanx to his sincere efforts, STR has welcomed a young tigress of age 2.5 years brought from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Maharashtra.
The tigress was captured in TATR on Saturday morning around 9 am and was brought to Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district by road last evening.
The wild tigress has been released in an enclosure inside the core of STR this morning, a senior forest officer said.
The tigress is healthy and doing fine in its new home in the STR region, he said.
The tigress has been brought to Odisha under tiger translocation programme.
Forest officials said the enclosure has been created in the core area within Similipal south division. The wild animal will be kept in the enclosure for observation for at least one to two weeks before their release in the core area of Similipal.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has given the nod to the proposal for translocation of two felines from the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve to the STR, of which one animal has been translocated while other will be brought soon, the official said.
On the instruction of the NTCA, the Maharashtra Government has agreed to give two female tigers from TATR to Odisha for the big cat supplementation programme in Similipal.
This is intended to improve the genetic diversity of the existing big cat population of the tiger reserve which has almost no nearby breeding source population. The second female tiger will also be brought from TRAR soon, the source said.