A young tigress from Pilibhit Tiger Reserve is frequently making news headlines of late, by moving out of the forests and making herself at home in human habitats. Her comfortable jaunts into Pilibhit town and villages are creating a wave of excitement among the public while sending the forest department into a tizzy, as they are now literally caught between the devil and the deep sea!
They would be answerable, either ways – if the public causes any harm to her, or if she accidentally ends up killing a human. As of now, the tigress has parked herself in a river basin.
In the midst of the public excitement and forest department’s worries, Indian Masterminds caught up with DFO of Pilibhit, Mr. Naveen Khandelwal, an IFS officer of 2016 batch, to know more about this famous young tigress.
TRAILING HER
“We are closely trailing her and keeping a close watch on her movements. She is moving southwards from the tiger reserve,” said Mr. Khandelwal. This is the second time within a short duration that this particular tigress has moved out of the forests into human inhabited areas.
The last time, she perched herself on the wall of a gurudwara and even went off to sleep after seemingly getting bored of watching the crowds of people gathered around her, recording her with their cameras. The videos and photos made to TV and print news and became viral in no time, bringing her instant fame.
Eventually, the forest department tranquilised and captured her, and ran medical tests on her to rule out any infection. After all the tests came back normal, she was released back into the forest area, and the department heaved a sigh of relief, which has, unfortunately, turned out to be shortlived!
The tigress is back again in the town, and till the filing of this report, is on the prowl. For the last few says, she has been staying put in a river basin nearby. Before finding her way here, she went for a casual evening stroll in the town, raising the excitement bar a notch higher among the public this time round. Videos of her walking around nonchalantly emerged with clear excited voices of people in the background talking about having a tigress in their backyard.
NO PUSHING BACK
The forest department took no time to arrive on the spot, and has been trailing the tigress ever since. “We are not making any effort to push her back as it is not possible since she is about 20 km away from the forest area. From the town area, she has moved on to river basin. Every day, she is walking around 10 km,” Mr. Khandelwal said.
Both the times, the tigress stepped out of the Protected Area and walked into densely human populated areas. The fact that she has shown no signs of fright or panic on being surrounded by excited crowds of people has come to the notice of the forest officials. Neither has she shown any sign of feeling threatened and of aggression. This has perplexed wildlife enthusiasts and tiger experts.
While agreeing that this is not normal, Mr. Khandelwal sought to explain it with this theory. “Let’s call this human presence conditioning of a tiger. She is a young tigress and she is moving out to establish her own territory as the Pilibhit is a high density Tiger Reserve with 71 plus tigers inside the PA, and she must have not succeeded in making her own territory inside.”
LOWERING DOWN GUARD
Although this makes sense of her unusual behaviour, the lowering down of guard might actually expose her to threats to her life. Ever since she has come out for the second time, she has killed three cattle for food within a week. If she continues preying on the livestock of villagers, one cannot rule out their getting agitated and causing harm to the big cat.
One thing that has so far prevented the villagers from taking any step in haste is the Bagh Mitras, groups of young people from the villages on the fringes formed by the Pilibhit forest department, to spread awareness on the do’s and dont’s in case of coming face to face with a tiger.
Also, this tigress was radio collared the last time she was captured, which is helping the forest department to track her movements all the time, and send alerts to villages in advance.
Incidentally, she has not been given a name as, unlike other tiger reserves, Pilibhit does not name their tigers. Mr. Khandelwal said, “We don’t follow the procedure of naming our tigers. We recognise them by their stripes.”
Identifying them by their ‘stripes’ is fine. However, what is not fine is the ‘stripping’ of guard by this young tigress in an area besieged by human-tiger conflicts. Hence, as they wait and watch, the Pilibhit forest officials and staff are on constant high alert to prevent any untoward incident, as Miss Royal Stripes continues southwards on her hunt for territory.
