With the ever present problems of poachers and the ongoing tensions between the villagers and forest department, the tigers are always in danger of being targeted by poachers and villagers.
With the disappearance of tigress ST-5 and poaching of tiger ST-11 from the Sariska Tiger Reserve, the security of tigers in Sariska has come under scrutiny. With the ever present problems of poachers and the ongoing tensions between the villagers and forest department, the tigers are always in danger of being targeted by poachers and villagers. However, the department is now planning to purchase radio collars so that tigers at Sariska can be monitored round-the-clock and the incident like disappearance of ST-5 does not occur.
Highly placed officials in the department said that the price of each collar is around Rs 5 lakh. “The collars would be purchased for all the adult tigers. The thought behind it is that cubs do not stray away from their mother till two years of age and at present there are no tigers of that age at Sariska. It is the adult that moves from area to area and thus it is being thought that the tigers be radio collared,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
Interestingly, the department believes that had the radio collar of tiger ST-5 been functioning, the tigress would not have gone missing. “Had the collar been in working condition we would have been able to track its whereabouts and find out if it’s dead or alive or whether it fell prey to poaching. The idea behind putting collars on remaining tigers emanates from this fear that what if another tiger goes missing or is poached. It is also believed that in the case of ST-11, the farmers came forward only because the tiger had a radio collar and its disappearance would have created a lot of trouble for the poachers,” official said.
At present Sariska has a population of 12 tigers that can be radio collared.
Price Play
Highly placed officials said that the price of each collar is around Rs 5 lakh. “The collars would be purchased for all adult tigers. The thought behind it is that cubs do not stray away from their mother till two years of age and at present there are no tigers of that age at Sariska.”
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