Jaichand, the tiger on Wednesday was rescued by the forest officials after he fell into the main canal of the Gosikhurd dam near Paoni in Bhandara while chasing a wild boar.
While his sibling Srinivas died of electrocution and his father Jai went missing, tiger ‘Jaichand’ had a lucky escape after he was saved from a watery grave by forest officials.
On Wednesday, the around three-and-half years old Jaichand, who is a dominant male in the Umred Karhandla wildlife sanctuary (UKWLS) fell into the main canal of the Gosikhurd dam near Paoni in Bhandara, while apparently chasing wild boars.
“We had received reports of around five to six wild boar falling into the water. We rescued them by using nets and driving them to ramps and came back to our office after which we learnt that a tiger had fallen into the waters,” said Doma Barai, range forest officer (RFO), Paoni.
He added that the discharge of water from the dam into the canal had made rescue difficult and the tiger, whose name is a combination of his father Jai and mother Chandi, was finding it tough to climb out. Jaichand was probably chasing the wild boars when he fell into the water.
“We then got mats rope ladders and threw them into the water after tying the other end to one of our vehicles. This helped Jaichand climb out and go into the forests,” Barai explained.
Forest officials stressed on the need for these irrigation canals to have more ramps for these animals to wade out of the water in case they fell into it as otherwise, rescue was difficult.
They pointed to how linear projects like roads and dams could prove fatal for wildlife if adequate safety measures were not taken. On December 29, Bajirao, the dominant male of the Bor tiger project, was knocked down by a vehicle on the NH6 near Nagpur.
Jaichand’s father Jai, who was reputed to be one of the largest tigers in India, was the dominant male in the UKWLS which is located 60 km from Nagpur and is spread over a 189 sq km area.
The last location of the seven-footer and 250 kg Jai--named after superstar Amitabh Bachchan's character from the blockbuster Sholay--was at Paoni range near his habitat of UKWLS on April 18, 2016, when his radio collar last emitted signals and is suspected to have malfunctioned.
This led to a massive outcry and search operation by the forest department, wildlife enthusiasts and NGO's, with fears that the iconic tiger, the largest in India, may have been poached.
In a strange twist of fate, his son Srinivas, who was also radio-collared, was found electrocuted at Nagbhid range in the Bramhapuri forest division in Chandrapur just over a year after his father’s “disappearance.”
In 2017, Maharashtra lost 18 tigers according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) data while the figure for India was 98.
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 "(Jaichand Tiger)")
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