Mukundara Hills to get three tigers after 4-year wait
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has given the go-ahead for relocating three tigers, one male and two females, from Ranthambore National Park to the Mukundara Hills tiger reserve.
“The NTCA technical committee has cleared the relocation of three tigers, one male and two female, to Mukundara Hills from Ranthambore, in a meeting held in New Delhi on Friday. The relocation, which was earlier scheduled for December 2018, has been advanced by a year,” a senior forest department official told HT.
Mukundara Hills tiger reserve, located in the Hadoti region of south-eastern Rajasthan, has been waiting for the big cats it has been named after, ever since its inception in 2013.
It is the third notified tiger habitat in Rajasthan after Ranthambore in Sawai Madhopur and Sariska in Alwar.
The reserve was formed to cater to the spillover tiger population from Ranthambore, which at present is reported to have around 65 tigers.
The state government had recently sought the Centre’s nod for shifting the animals.
Mukundara Hills has a wide range of wildlife population that includes panthers, sloth bear, blue bulls, cheetal, sambhar, chinkara wild boars, and jackal among other species.
The state’s chief wildlife warden GV Reddy, while refusing to confirm or deny the move, said: “I will wait for the minutes of the meeting (held on Friday) to be made available before making any statement.”
Sources said state forest minister Gajendra Singh met Union environment and forest minister Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi last week and also discussed the issue of shifting the tigers.
The ministers said the addition of tigers to Mukundara Hills reserve will attract more domesOn tic and foreign tourists and help the state government generate the much-needed revenue for improving security and tourism infrastructure.
The state wildlife department had sent the Tiger Conservation Plan (TCP) to the National Tiger Conservation Authority in 2106.
Conversationalist Tapeshwar Singh Bhati and others have been urging officials since a long time to expedite the tiger relocation process.
While the Mukundara Tiger reserve was established in 2013, development of infrastructure, shifting of prey base and surrounding villages, selection of tigers for release and other related works have taken time, officials admitted.