ALWAR: The death of ST-1, the first relocated tiger to the Sariska reserve, may have been the result of a fallout of negligence of higher officials of the reserve and not just that of the lower rank staff or that of the team from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) that had been given the task of monitoring the tiger’s movements.
The new twist to the death of the big cat comes with the surfacing of a letter written by the then DFO of Sariska tiger reserve S Sharma. In the letter written by him on January 29, 2009, Sharma had asked all range officers to keep track of the tiger’s movements with help of its VHF collar only once in two days. The letter states that the monitoring of the movement should be done just once in two days and that too during the day time only.
The condition, however, violates earlier agreement by the state forest department of monitoring the movement of the tigers 24x7. In fact, it was with this in mind that all the relocated tigers were fitted with a radio collar. A special team from the WII was also assigned the task of tracking the tigers for not only to study their behaviour, but also to ensure that they don’t fall prey to poachers or to the whims of villagers living in the reserve.
However, after the letter, most range officers and the tiger tracking team dropped guards and eventually the tiger was poisoned by villagers in reserve. The body was recovered by the forest department days after being poisoned. The government, as a punitive measure, had suspended some officers and staffers of the reserve. However, S Sharma eventually retired.
"When senior officers had ordered to monitor tigers just once in two days, where is the question of lower rung officers dropping guards. They were doing what they had been ordered. The mistake was committed by the senior officer," said an official.
Sharma is against 24-hour monitoring of tigers and he had even spoken his mind in a recently held seminar on ‘Challenges Ahead for Sariska’ in Jaipur. In the seminar, Sharma had pointed out the uselessness of radio collars and said, "My experience as the DFO in Sariska has been that these radio collars are more of a bane than a boon for tigers. They add to the stress of the animal. Whenever any tiger meets a tigress, four vehicles of different officials would instantly surround them and the duo were not able to mingle properly. I had asked the department not to keep track of these animals through this means once they had settled down in a territory for sometime."
Be that as it may, most wildlife experts had thwarted Sharma’s claims that radio collars were the reason for the tigresses not giving birth at Sariska. As of now, it is the letter by him that is being pointed to as the reason behind the death of ST-1.
http://m.timesofindia.com/city/jaipur/Tiger-not-tracked-daily-following-ex-DFOs-letter/articleshow/8848013.cms
