Adilabad: Tiger corridor comes alive; 20 MO cub caught on camera

Adilabad: Tiger corridor linking the overcrowded Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary (TWS) in the Yavatmal district of Maharashtra to the Tamsi (K) forest in the northwest Adilabad district has once again come alive. Yes, the movement of a 20-month-old cub has been noticed through a camera trap on this side of the inter-state border signifying the importance of this corridor.

This wild animal has been identified as from the streak inhabiting the forest of Paunar about 30 km east of the TWS. The forest department officials are monitoring the movement of this tiger (Panthera tigris) which is considered to be inexperienced, given its age, in the art of survival. Wildlife enthusiasts like the Hyderabad-based Sanjeev Siva, however, differ from this long-held notion and he was proved right as the cub was seen on camera with a wild prey its kill.

The recent spell of heavy rainfall has understandably slowed down the monitoring of the young solitary predator. Its absence from the watchful lens of the numerous camera traps has made forest officials believe that it is in the forest lying ahead of Tamsi (K)."The cub would certainly have moved to high ground to save itself from the flooding of Penganga which it has crossed to reach the Telangana border," opined Mr. Siva. "Sooner or later there has to be a cattle kill," he said with a certainty that comes with experience as he talked about the impact of torrential rainfall on the top of the food chain animal.

The cub in question happens to be the fifth tiger to have entered the State through this corridor in the last four years. The last one to have ambled into this territory was a three-year-old fondly called Gabbar which had come in August 2021 and is now believed to be somewhere in the Nirmal forest division as the area has comparatively good forest cover.

According to some keen wildlife enthusiasts, there is a likelihood of some more tiger cubs crossing over into the Adilabad district via a different corridor. "The Bori-Mandvi forest which is outside the Tipeshwar Sanctuary is inhabited by one female and three cubs while the Paunar forest range has two females," revealed an enthusiast.

"The cubs can cross the Penganga via Kayar into Bela Mandal and through Indervelli forests can reach the Kawal Tiger Reserve in the north of Telangana," he added. At present, this Reserve has no big cat presence.

"The KTR, including the central core area of Jannaram Division, is suitable for tigers to inhabit given the habitat improvement," stated Mancherial District Forest Officer Shivani Dogra. "A lot of development in terms of grasslands has taken place which will go a long way in improving the prey base for the tigers," she affirmed talking of the park development aspect.

There is, nonetheless, no news of tigers from Kagaznagar Forest Division in Kumram Bheem Asifabad district which was in the headlines till the end of 2020. There were regular sightings of the big cat by civilians and in the worst case of man-animal conflict, two persons were killed in November that year.

"The tigers may have learnt to avoid human presence over this time," said a forest official trying to explain why tigers are not being sighted now. "The number of tigers is the same," he sounded confident.