| Meet on tiger translocation method begins today |
| Guwahati, July 26 : A team of officials from the Manas tiger reserve will participate in a two-day interaction programme organised by the country’s apex body in tiger conservation at Sariska in Rajasthan beginning tomorrow. The team led by the field director of the Manas tiger reserve, A. Swargiari, is visiting Sariska in Alwar district to study the conservation and breeding models followed there. “Sariska has now taken the centrestage in tiger conservation and every effort is being made by the authorities to ensure that other tiger reserves do not experience what Sariska had to sometime ago,” Swargiari said. The interaction programme organised by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) follows a letter to the Manas tiger reserve in which the tiger conservation authority proposed a breeding programme that will include building enclosures for tigers and its prey population. The programme has a two-fold objective: to study the method of tiger translocation and an assessment of status of the tiger reserve. According to the conservation authority, the status of the tigers and their habitat have not improved at Manas because of several decimating factors, including poaching, habitat and prey depletion. Last year, two tigers were relocated from Ranthambhore to start a breeding programme at Sariska to replenish its extinct tiger population. Swargiari said the meeting would discuss the problems being faced by the Manas tiger reserve. The plan of action suggested by the NTCA stated that two adult tigresses and a male tiger be translocated from the same habitat or from a forest with tigers in the same landscape, into a larger enclosure (more than 50 hectares for each tigress) built in-situ within the tiger reserve. The enclosures for the tigresses would form part of a larger enclosure (more than 200 hectares) housing the male, with the facility for the tigresses to interact separately with the tiger for courtship. The proposed tiger breeding action plan of the Centre in the Manas National Park has, however, come in for criticism from wildlife NGOs in Assam. According to them, the thrust should be on protecting the tigers rather than releasing them in the wild and building enclosures which is an expensive affair. Aaranyak, one such NGO, said in its representation to the Assam forest department that releasing tigers in large enclosures or in the natural habitat would be inappropriate without considering important issues like protection. “The view in the department is that protection should be strengthened in Manas before going for such massive exercises,” a forest official said. |
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