Nagpur: The much-planned release of Avni’s three-year-old female cub (T1C2) in the wild has been deferred by 10 days as the tigress suffered a minor injury to its left leg eight days ago.
State PCCF (wildlife) Nitin H Kakodkar said, “We were about to release the tigress but found that it had a slight injury. We did not want to take any chances post release, and hence have decided to defer it for now.”
On whether elephants are being brought to monitor the tigress from Gadchiroli, Kakodkar said, “Though elephants will not be specifically brought to monitor T1C2, we already have a plan to set up an elephant camp on the lines of MP in Maharashtra side of Pench.”
T1C2, the one-year-old cub of Pandharkawda tigress Avni, which was shot dead on November 2, 2018, was captured on December 21, 2018, from the same territory. She was straightaway shifted to the four-hectare enclosure inside Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra, where it was trained to hunt in the enclosure.
With an aim to re-release T1C2 in the wild, the animal was radio-collared by Wildlife Institute of India (WII) scientist Bilal Habib on December 22. It was about to be released after monitoring its movement for a few days. On November 27, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had already given the go-ahead to release the tigress in Pench.
A deer was also released in the four-hectare enclosure inside Pench so that post-release it doesn’t have to struggle to get immediate prey. However, the tigress was found to be slightly injured in a minor fight with another tiger that used to frequent the enclosure regularly to meet the tigress. This led the officials to put off the release.
“This is not the first time that T1C2 has been injured during its stay here. It is not something new. We have to be extra-cautious while releasing the cub, hence treated her for the wound which is healing now. It is part of our internal management and all information about the stages of release need not be shared,” said Pench officials.
Though forest officials admit the T1C2 rewilding exercise is a big challenge, earlier four such efforts to release hand-reared animals in the wild have failed miserably. On May 17, 2015, tigress TF2 that was trained in the same cage, had to be captured after 22 days when the tigress was at the doorsteps of Khapa village in Pench. In the 22 days it was free, it was unable to hunt in the wild and had returned to its enclosure twice.
In September 2019, tigress E1, which was captured from Bramhapuri and re-released in July in Melghat Tiger Reserve (MTR), was also recaptured after it was involved in attacks on humans and moved near villages.
State-level committee members taking a call on the release of abandoned and problem tigers said, “It will not be a surprise if T1C2 returns to the enclosure for food. Pench has good density of tigers and nothing can be predicted as to how the tigress will behave. This issue did not come before the committee.”