Nagpur: Eight days after the process to soft-release female cub of Pandharkawada tigress PKT1 aka Avni started, the three-year-old tigress was reunited with the wild on Friday.
Sources said the gate of the enclosure was opened last Friday but as the tigress did not step out, it used to be closed by evening. However on March 5, the tigress moved out of the enclosure around 6.45pm.
PKT1-C2, now renamed as PTRF-84, was housed in the in-situ enclosure at Titralmangi in Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR), Maharashtra, since December 22, 2018, when she was captured and shifted here.
“The cub was rewilded as per the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) SOP and was reared with bare minimum interference. We’ve set up three teams to monitor the collared tigress. Further, monitoring of the animal will be carried out with help of field formation and satellite tracking,” said Ravikiran Govekar, chief conservator of forests (CCF) & field director, Pench.
On whether the experiment will be successful, Govekar said, “The chances are 50:50. Learning from past experiences, we will not chase the animal and allow it to settle down. Tiger density is good in Pench and there are chances of fights with other individuals who try to realign their territory. In case of major injury or movement towards human habitations, we will capture the tigress. Our rewilding plan also included retrieval.”
The chances of fights with other tigers cannot be ruled out as a male tiger and of the late a tigress too used to come near the enclosure. In December third week, the well-planned release of the tigress was also deferred as the tigress suffered a minor injury in the left leg after a scuffle with another tiger from the wild.
Govekar said, “We cannot predict how this tigress will behave in the wild but the best of efforts to rewild the animal using systematic re-wilding techniques have been taken. Lots of information about tiger behaviour was also collected during the experiment. The learnings during this experiment will be useful in active tiger management in the future.”
The one-year-old tiger cub was brought to Pench on the night of December 22, 2018, after a rescue operation in Pandharkawada. The cub was housed in a 5.11-hectare enclosure for over two years.
An expert committee under the chairmanship of PCCF (wildlife) supervised the entire rewilding experiment. After the concurrence of the committee, the proposal for release was submitted to NTCA, which approved the rewilding project. The tigress was then radio-collared by scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
GOING WILD
The 1-year-old cub was captured on December 22, 2018, from Pandharkawda forest
It was kept in over 5-ha enclosure in Pench and trained to hunt
On November 27, 2020, NTCA gave a go-ahead to release
The tigress was radio-collared WII on December 22, 2020
The release was deferred as another tiger injured the tigress
Attempts to release the tigress were going on since last Friday
On May 17, 2015, tigress TF2 that was trained in the same enclosure was captured after 22 days when it was about to enter Khapa village in Pench
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