KOLKATA: Sunderbans tigers don't seem game for radio collars or computer chips. So much so, that at least two tigresses have discarded the German-made radio collars that forest department employees tagged on them in February this year while a third big cat's radio collar — which was tagged in March — isn't sending signals to forest officials' computers, making it impossible for them to keep track of her.
The tigresses, captured when they strayed into human habitat, had radio collars tied around their necks before they were released back into the wild. Scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, came down to the Sunderbans in February to tag radio collars on two tigresses. They also trained state forest employees to perform the task. The training came in handy when forest employees had to tag a radio collar on another tigress in March.
Experts thought of the radio collars as the most effective way to keep track of tigers in the wild. If these functioned normally, they would send regular signals which would pop up on computers of forest officials — particularly useful whenever the big cat was about to stray into human habitat again. In such an eventuality, forest officials would pass on a warning message to residents of villages the tiger was straying into.
However, within months of the radio collars being tagged on the three tigresses, forest officials realised that their computer screens showed no alerts about movements of the animals. Instead, signals from two radio collars indicated that the tigresses had discarded them. Forest employees were then sent into the dense jungle and traced the two radio collars, which were lying abandoned. A third radio collar tagged in March has turned out to be defunct, and isn't sending signals, officials say.
Wildlife experts say the terrain of the Sunderbans, where tigers alternate between land and water, renders radio collars ineffective. Moreover, these can easily come off a tiger's neck as the big cats have to negotiate through dense vegetation, said experts.
State principal chief conservator of forests Atanu Raha said: “We have requested scientists from the wildlife institute in Dehradun to come down to Kolkata on Friday. We intend to seek their suggestions on ways to make radio-collaring more effective."
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