NAGPUR: Heard of radio-collaring a tiger in Maharashtra? No? For the first time, the forest department is contemplating to collar the Katlabodi tigress which they had successfully rescued from a 35-feet-deep well, 40 kms from Nagpur on February 7.
"We are preparing for the post-monitoring of the tigress and exploring all the available methods," said N Rambabu, conservator of forests (Nagpur Division).
The forest department is making 'preliminary inquiries about getting a radio-collar'. "If we don't get it easily and early, we won't waste time as the tigress is fit to be released back into the wild. We are also in touch with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) officials," Rambabu added.
Rajesh Gopal, member-secretary of the NTCA, did not respond to calls made by TOI and neither did he reply to a text message.
If all goes well, the Katlabodi tigress will be the first case of cat collaring in the state. This will also be the first success story of a rescued tigress being released to back where it belongs. Earlier, the wildlife wing had fixed chips in leopards that had strayed into the Ordnance Factory in Chandrapur.
"I see no reason why we should not keep track of the tigress. Thousands of animals are being studied and followed through radio collar or marking," said Asad Rahmani, director of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).
Rahmani added that the forest department is quite capable of executing their plan. They can put a radio-collar that can fall off after the battery is worn out or even before that.
"These days we get tailor-made radio-collars for a particular study for a particular animal and even for a particular sex with a set programme to provide required information. Radio-collaring, satellite tracking, ringing and banding are well-known techniques to study animals and also to follow the movement of the released animals," said Rahmani, who is also a member of the National Board for Wild Life (NBWL).
Another NBWL member Kishor Rithe said, "I don't see any problem. It's a good opportunity that has come walking to the forest officials. Collaring will help in knowing the source population. If not a collar, they should at least fit a transmission chip. The chief wildlife warden needs to take a call."
Nitin Desai, director of Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), Central India, suggested a satellite collar, which may cost somewhere between Rs 2-2.5 lakh.
Prafulla Bhamburkar, manager of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), said that collaring the tigress is necessary as the officials will not only know its movement but also help infuse many inputs towards conservation of tiger corridors.
"Till today we don't know the exact status of tigers, the group they belong to or the place from where they have come. The WTI will support monitoring of the tigress," Bhamburkar said.
After the Sariska debacle in which the entire tiger population was poached, the Tiger Task Force (TTF) had in August 2005 recommended that all efforts should be made to encourage and facilitate intensive research and monitoring of tigers by using a variety of tools like photo-identification and monitoring, camera traps, radiotelemetry and DNA-based genetic studies in different landscape units.
Although radio-collaring is a good system to monitor animals, an intelligence report submitted to the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) in July 2009 had blamed 'radio-collaring' for the tiger deaths in the Panna tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh.
However, experts disagreed. They said Panna tigers died due to human interference and added that it's very convenient to blame scientists and methods. They say section 28(1) of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) has provision for scientific research, investigation and study of wildlife.
In a court matter (October 2010), the Karnataka government and the forest department differed on radio-collaring tigers. While the Karnataka government said that there is nothing wrong with radio-collaring, the forest department rejected a proposal by wildlife researcher K Ullas Karanth to continue research on tigers by adopting radio-collaring.
Former PCCF of Madhya Pradesh, P M Lad was of the view that collaring is a secondary thing. The primary issue is that since the staff doesn't move around in the forest, it doesn't have adequate knowledge about straying tigers. "Officials should first know where the tigress came from and then go for the experiment. Radio collaring has both advantages and disadvantages," he added.
No comments:
Post a Comment