Radio collar slips off tigress brought to Buxa, refitted after a second sedation

The satellite-linked VHF radio collar fitted to a three-year-old tigress caught in a Bihar forest and brought to West Bengal's Buxa Tiger Reserve came off within minutes, so she had to be sedated twice in the space of a day, Ei Samay reports.

Citing sources in the Union environment ministry, the paper says the tigress was captured on Tuesday afternoon, collared and caged. When the antidote to the sedative was given, as protocol requires, she woke and pawed at her neck, and the collar fell into the cage. It was meant to stay on for at least a year.

Sources at Valmiki Tiger Reserve say that with a sub-adult tiger, at least three fingers' gap is left between neck and collar so that it does not choke the animal as it grows. One source claims that gap was not left this time. The forest department has not commented.

Without the collar, she was taken first by road and then aboard a Super Hercules military aircraft to Buxa early on Wednesday and released into an enclosure. On Wednesday night the state forest minister posted CCTV footage of her drinking in the enclosure, and it showed no collar. She was sedated again on Thursday afternoon, and the collar was to be refitted that evening with the proper gap.

A state forest official said the tigress had roamed the whole enclosure, marked territory with urine and drunk from the pool several times. No explanation has been given for why she was fed about 10 kg of goat meat on Thursday when seven chital deer had been put in the enclosure as prey.

She was due to be released into the open forest on Friday morning in the presence of Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, with the release broadcast live to a stage at the Alipurduar parade ground. Objections from the National Tiger Conservation Authority to live-streaming from the forest are reported to have been resolved.

This report is based on reporting by Shiladitya Saha and Pinaki Chakraborty for Ei Samay.

Photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Source: Ei Samay