JAIPUR: Keeping cubs safe is becoming difficult for tigresses in Ranthambore National Park (RNP) as space is constantly shrinking for big cats, which are inherently peripatetic.
On Thursday, a decomposed body of five-month-old cub of tigress T-60 was found in Gandhara forest region, where movement of intruder male tiger T-57 along with tigress T-63 was recorded. As per the forest staff, territories of big cats in the region are over-lapping and tiger T-102 is also frequently spotted in the region.
RNP, DFO, Mahendra Sharma said, “It appears the cub died four to five days ago. The injuries sustained by the tiger cub revealed during the autopsy suggested that it could have fallen prey to a carnivorous.”
As per official records, the cub was last captured by a trap camera on March 26. An intense search operation was initiated after the monitoring team could not record the pug marks of the cub in past few days.
Sharma added, the movement of T-57 and T-63 was recorded on a waterhole in Gandhara region, where tigress T-60 along with her cub was spotted for the first time. “It was observed that T-60 was constantly roaring. Following the indication our team started monitoring and found the remains of the cub. It’s a difficult job to recover the body after three four days, as it decomposes very quickly in the wild,” he said
Increasing tiger population in RNP has become a challenge for the park operators to provide space for wild cats to avoid conflicts.
The Ranthambore reserve has a core area of 392sqkm, with a buffer zone of 1,342sqkm. Of the total area of little over 1,700sqkm in RTR, only 600sqkm can be used by tigers. The park has a total of 70 tigers, including 23 male, 29 female and 18 cubs.
A wildlife expert said, “In a recent trend, it was witnessed that tigresses of Ranthambore are giving birth to cubs outside the park to provide safe habitat. For instance, T-102 gave birth to its cubs in the Ama Ghati area. Similarly, photographs of tigress T-107 were captured in the camera traps at the reserve’s Amreshwar forest.”