Bhubaneswar: All roadblocks have now been cleared to relocate tigress Sundari from Satkosia Tiger Reserve to Madhya Pradesh with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) allaying fears of the Madhya Pradesh government.
Few days back, the state had raised apprehensions against the relocation of tigress Sundari and wrote their reservations against the move to the NTCA after the Odisha government decided to send the tigress back to MP.
“We had received the letter from the MP government raising their specific concerns against the relocation. We have now had our communication with them and the matter has been sorted out. We have told them that they can relocate the tigress anywhere in the state as per their local assessment of habitat and safety,” a senior member from NTCA told Orissa POST.
The officer also said that the future of the next relocation has not been cancelled but put on indefinite halt under the ambitious maiden project of inter-state relocation of the tigers for increasing the population of tigers in Odisha. “The main motive for which a tiger and a tigress were released in the wilds of Satkosia has failed and thus the whole project was put on hold,” he said.
The Odisha government said that within one month, the tigress will be shifted to Madhya Pradesh. “The government had earlier decided to shift back the tigress and now within one month she is likely to be shifted back to the state as per the protocol under strict monitoring and security,” PCCF (Wild Life) HS Upadhay said.
The return will mark the formal culmination of the maiden experiment of inter-state translocation of tigers to increase tiger population in the country. In the maiden phase, a tiger named Mahaveer and a tigress Sundari were sent from MP to Satkosia.
Manish Kumar, OP