Tiger found dead in Sariska

Jaipur, Nov 15 (IANS) A tiger has been found dead in Rajasthan’s Sariska Tiger Reserve, an official said Monday.

The carcass of the tiger was found late Sunday evening by forest officials who said that the wild cat must have died on account of a fight with another male tiger.

“Preliminary investigations suggest that the tiger aged around 5 years must have died in a fight with another wild cat,” a forest official said adding that the exact cause of death would be known after post-mortem.

“We started our search for this tiger after we found signals from its radio collar continuously coming from one particular place. This alarmed us and we found this tiger dead near Kankwadi area in the tiger reserve,” said the official.

Meanwhile, sources in the forest department said that the male tiger which may have attacked the dead cat has also gone missing since Nov 3. Forest officials denied this.

“The forest department has launched a massive search for the tiger and sought help of villagers and NGOs to trace it as the signals from the radio collar of the tiger have not been received since November 3,” a source said.

Forest department officials indicated that the tiger might have gone to the nearby Kuncha Jungle. It might be hiding in a ditch from where getting radio signals is difficult, the source said.

The tiger reserve was originally a hunting preserve of the erstwhile Alwar state. It was declared a wildlife reserve in 1955. In 1978, it was declared a tiger reserve.

The tiger reserve has an area of around 866 sq km and is located some 110 km from Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur.

Some of the wildlife found in the reserve include the leopard, jungle cat, hyena, jackal, chital, sambar, langur, wild boar, four-horned deer and several species of birds.

Since 2008, five tigers - two males and three females - have been relocated to the reserve from Ranthambore National Park in Sawai Madhopur district.

Taken from http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100459938.html

I hope this is investigated thoroughly. The tiger relocation attempts to Sariska has had several serious problems from the beginning. They have even relocated siblings against all scientific norms.

The problems afflicting Sariska have not been resolved. The villages are still there inside the park, so poaching cannot be contained. The mining mafia is operating in full force. The State Govt. has refused to stop the mining going on against the Supreme Court directives. The mining lobby would love to see all the tigers exterminated from the park, and the area denotified. Stop gap arrangements like tiger relocation, without addressing the core problems will not take us anywhere.

Sabyasachi

An update to the news..

Poisoning could be reason behind tiger's death: Ramesh
PTI, Nov 17, 2010, 05.25pm IST

SARISKA: (PTI) The death of a translocated big cat is shrouded in mystery but there is a possibility of poisoning, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said as he indicated that more heads may roll in the wake of the incident.

"Both the Central and State governments have failed in saving the animal. Yet it appears to be a mystery. No bullet wound (was found)... I think there is a very preponderant possibility of poisoning," Ramesh said as he visited the sanctuary amidst the controversy over the government's tiger revival plan.

The minister said he had arrived at the conclusion after talking to villagers and experts at the site. "It (poisoning) clearly seems to be the gut feeling of most of the people," he said.

The death of the male tiger, which happened to be the first one to be relocated in Sariska in 2008, seems to have been shrouded in mystery with the state forest officials claiming that the post-mortem report has not detected any unnatural substance.

However, they said that the decomposed body was detected almost 72 hours after the death and some of the vital organs like tongue were missing.

Taking responsibility for the "shocking" and "disturbing" incident which has cast doubts over the tiger translocation programme functioning, he said, "I placed my faith in a lot of young officers who were posted here but they clearly did not fulfill their responsibility."

Experts from Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII) under whose supervision the translocation was undertaken two years ago also came under direct attack from the minister who said that even when there were no radio signals about the whereabouts of the tiger for the last two weeks they slept over it.

"I placed my faith in the WII which is under my ministry. They have also not come up to expectation either," he said indicating that more head might roll in the wake of the death of tiger.

"For two weeks there was no radio signal (from the radio-collars of the tiger). They (officials) should have alerted us. If radio signals were weak, we should have had GPS (global positioning systems) but not radio monitoring," Ramesh noted.

Rajasthan government yesterday suspended two officials of Sariska reserve forest on the charge of dereliction of duty which led to the death of a tiger there.

A committee headed by a senior officer Mohan Lal Meena has also been constituted to probe the death of the tiger which was translocated to Sariska from Ranthambore in 2008.

Brushing aside the criticism of the tiger translocation process, Ramesh said, "The show must go on. We must continue with the programme. I hope we will not have recurrence of such incident."

In the wake of the death of the tiger, a section of conservationists have questioned the tiger revival plan pointing faults in the process.

Over ten villages inside the Sariska sanctuary were a possible cause of threat to the wildlife, Ramesh said, adding the translocation itself was not going to work and steps must be taken to accelerate the relocation of villagers.

The decision came after Ramesh undertook a day-long tour of Sariska to review the steps taken by the state government for protection of the remaining tigers there.

In this regard, he said, "I have assured Rajasthan government of Rs 30 crore this fiscal year. We need to strengthen the field administration. My ministry has already doubled the allowance of field staff as an incentive."

To make the big cat habitats inviolate, the centre is offering Rs 10 lakhs or housing facilities to the villagers to encourage them to move out from the 39 tiger sanctuaries across the country.

On the issue of threat of mining which has been going on the fringes of the Sariska park spread over 880 sq km, Ramesh said chief minister Ashok Ghelot has promised stern action in this regard.

"This should be a wake up call for all of us and we need to have dialogue with villagers on the issue (for better conservation of the tigers).

Making it clear that the tragic episode would not affect the ongoing species relocation programe, the Minister said that as the park is left with only one male and three female tiger, steps would be taken to bring one more male big cat from Ranthambore sanctuary.

In this regard, the government has already identified a male tiger which has strayed to Bharatpur sanctuary from Ranthambore national park.

Article at - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/h...ow/6942075.cms

Shri Jairam Ramesh is giving the right sound bytes. However, I am not sure about the mining issue. The Chief minister of Rajasthan has not stopped the mining that is going on, even though it is in clear contravention to the Supreme court order.

The tiger translocation is a stop gap arrangement. Unless, we resolve the core issues, everything else is meaningless.

Why are they after the tiger in bharatpur? It is happily settled there. The Govt. should wait for the tiger to make a move. If it tries to stray out of the bharatpur park, then a decision can be taken. The only issue there is that the tiger doesn't have a mate. I guess the tiger will be there in bharapur for atleast a few months. In the meanwhile, the Govt. should work on a war footing to relocate the villages in Sariska, contain the tourism traffic going to the temple in pandupole, strengthening the guard force and stopping all the mining activities in the region.

I wish this Govt. had the will power to reestablish corridors between Sariska and Ranthambhore. That would ensure, tigers moving on their own sweet will, rather than the costly goof ups by the WII and forest dept.

Sabyasachi