10 Pilibhit tigers living in fields may be relocated
BAREILLY: The Uttar Pradesh forest department has given in-principle approval to a plan to relocate 10 tigers that have made the sugarcane fields outside the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve their home. The effort is to minimise the danger of human-animal conflict in an area where human casualties are among the highest in the vicinity of a wildlife sanctuary in India.
If the proposal gets the go-ahead from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), it would be first tiger relocation in recent decades carried out with the specific intent of reducing the odds of the big cats coming into conflict with humans.
Last year, 49 people were killed by tigers, 18 more than the number reported in the previous year, according to information tabled in the budget session of Parliament. Since 2014, a total of 275 people have been killed by tigers, which have lost 60 of their own in conflict with humans during the same period
Pilibhit Tiger Reserve is among the wildlife habitats in India that has reported the highest number of human casualties. Twenty seven people have been killed by tigers since November 2016 in and around the 730 square kilometre reserve, home to up to 70 tigers.
The tiger population inside the horseshoe-shaped reserve is at the saturation level, prompting 10 of the big cats to make their home in the sugarcane fields in the vicinity.
Tigers are territorial animals and the stronger felines tend to push the weaker and older ones out of their core area, forcing them to look for a new home.
“At least 10 tigers have made the sugarcane fields owned by some rich farmers near Deuni dam in Pilibhit’s Amaria block, 18 kilometres from Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, their home,” said Naveen Khandelwal, deputy director of the reserve.
“The presence of the big cats outside the reserve area poses a bigger danger to people in the region which already has high man-animal conflict incidents.”
Because the tigers were outside the reserve’s boundary, they needed to be shifted back into the reserve.