Tiger relocation project fails
- Category
Environment
- Published
19th Apr, 2021
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Sundari, a tigress shifted as part of India’s first inter-state translocation project in 2018 from Madhya Pradesh to Odisha, returned home, signifying failure of India’s first inter-state tiger relocation project.
Context
Sundari, a tigress shifted as part of India’s first inter-state translocation project in 2018 from Madhya Pradesh to Odisha, returned home, signifying failure of India’s first inter-state tiger relocation project.
About
What was the Tiger Relocation Project?
- The tiger relocation project was initiated in 2018.
- Under the plan, two big cats, a male (Mahavir) from Kanha Tiger Reserve and a female (Sundari) from Bandhavgarh from Madhya Pradesh were relocated to Satkosia Tiger Reserve in Odisha, to shore up the tiger population in the state.
- Sundari was brought to Satkosia a week after Mahavir’s arrival.
Satkosia Tiger Reserve
- Encompassing an area of 963.87 sq km, the Satkosia Tiger Reserve spreads across four districts and has as its core area 523 sq km.·
- Declared as a Tiger Reserve in 2007, Satkosia had a population of 12 tigers then. The numbers reduced to two in 2018.
- The purpose of the relocation was to repopulate tigers in the reserve areas.
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Purpose of the project
- The relocation was meant to serve two purposes —
- to reduce tiger population in areas with excess tigers to majorly reduce territorial disputes
- to reintroduce tigers in areas where the population has considerably reduced due to various reasons
Factors contributed to the likely failure of the project
- lack of confidence and trust building between the forest department and the villagers
- human-animal conflict
- Poor capacity for tiger monitoring
- Poor protection