Baripada: A tigress has been brought from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Maharashtra to be released in Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, a forest official said Sunday.
The tigress was captured in TATR Saturday morning.
The tigress will be released in an enclosure inside the core of Similipal Tiger Reserve Sunday night, STR field director Prakash Chand Gogineni said.
Forest officials said the enclosure has been created in the core area within the Similipal south division. The wild animal will be kept in the enclosure for observation for at least one to two weeks before its release in the core area of Similipal.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has given the nod to the proposal for translocation of two felines from Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve to STR, of which one animal has been translocated, officials said.
At present, Odisha has 30 tigers, of which 27 tigers are found in STR. Though STR has a unique population of melanistic tigers, in-breeding among the closed population has emerged as a looming threat to striped predators in the protected area. So the authority has decided to bring tigers from Maharashtra, they said.
PTI