When the
big cats world over are fast losing their
natural habitat, it is heartening to see one Indian state setting up a new home for this endangered species.
Maharashtra will soon be home to the state’s fifth
tiger reserve if it gets approval from the
National Tiger Conservation Authority, a senior official said in Mumbai. There are already four tiger reserves in the state including
Melghat,
Tadoba,
Pench and
Sahyadri.
The sanctuary identified for the new tiger project is located at
Nagzira-Navegaon – lying between Bhandara and Gondia districts. Earlier,
Nagzira sanctuary spanned some 150 sq km while the
Navegaon National Park covered 130 sq km. With the upcoming tiger habitat in view, the entire area has been increased to 700 sq km, principal secretary (forests) Praveen Pardeshi told the media.
Some big cats housed in Tadoba often wander outside the core area and these will be moved to the
Nagzira-Navegaon tiger reserve. There are more than 100 tigers in Tadoba while Nagzira alone shelters some 20 tigers.
As per the latest data, the average number of tigers in Maharashtra grew from 103 in 2006 to 168 in 2011. Other states like Kerala,
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka,
Assam and the Western Ghats region also saw a rise in number, according to new surveys conducted via camera traps.
India is home to the world’s largest population of wild tigers and the number stood at 1,706 according to the last census in 2011 (ranging between a minimum of 1,571 and a maximum of 1,875 across 17 Indian states). In a bid to boost the
tiger population, the central government gave in-principle approval for the creation of five
new tiger reserves in 2012. These include
Pilibhit (
Uttar Pradesh),
Ratapani (
Madhya Pradesh),
Sunabeda (
Odisha),
Mukundara Hills (
Rajasthan) and
Sathyamangalam (Tamil Nadu). The proposed Mukundara Hills Tiger Reserve constitutes three wildlife sanctuaries including Darrah, Jawahar Sagar and Chambal.
India is also planning to set up an all-new tiger sanctuary inside the
Sundarbans,
world’s largest mangrove forest which straddles the border of
West Bengal with
Bangladesh. The Sundarbans, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site spanning some 10,000 sq km, already houses a tiger reserve but a second one could be coming up to accommodate the increasing tiger population in that region.
With input from agencies
Image: Wikipedia
