After months of planning and two days of hard work, Madhya Pradesh wildlife officials finally managed to airlift a full-grown tigress from the famous Kanha national park.
After months of planning and two days of hard work, Madhya Pradesh wildlife officials finally managed to airlift a full-grown tigress, Indri, from the famous Kanha national park to the crisis-ridden Panna tiger reserve on Monday. But in the process, Panna lost its date with a virgin tigress.
Four-year-old Indri was the last choice of the forest officials. They had picked up Salghat, a three-year-old virgin tigress, to be shifted to Panna for breeding. But, to the chagrin of forest officials, Salghat hoodwinked them completely the whole of Sunday.
She was spotted on Saturday morning and was to be tranquilised on Sunday morning. When the IAF’s huge M-17 series Russian chopper landed in the park from Jodhpur, with a seven-member Desert Hawks 107 helicopter unit aboard, Salghat was nowhere to be found. Elephant-mounted search teams scanned the entire tiger reserve, but Salghat had simply disappeared, forcing the officials to change their strategy for the next day. The same IAF unit had shifted three tigers from Ramthambore to Sariska last year.
Around 9.40 am on Monday, they found Indri. They darted the 130-kg tigress with calamine and zylogin to tranquilise it and then transported it to Panna national park.
Kanha field director RP Singh said they picked on Indri over Salghat after considering that Indri had given birth to two cubs last year and could bear a few more. “The idea is to restore Panna to its original glory,” Dr Pabla said.
According to the 2006 census, Panna had 36 big cats. But not one striped animal has been sighted lately. Madhya Pradesh government faced severe criticism for its failure to protect its tigers.
MP’s chief wildlife warden Dr HS Pabla, who personally supervised the operation, told DNA that after the National Tiger Conservation Authority, Delhi gave the go-ahead, the MP forest department, with help from Wildlife Institute of India scientists, finalised the plan to shift one tigress from Bandhavgarh tiger reserve and one from Kanha, to Panna. The Bandhavgarh tigress was shifted by road last week.
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