New Delhi: For the past nine months, Gujarat’s Dahod district is now home to a tiger who wandered into the state from Madhya Pradesh in February this year. This marks the first time Gujarat has had a tiger in the wild since 1997, and makes Gujarat the first state to have the three big cats: lion, tiger, leopard.
The male tiger, which came into the Ratanmahal Sloth Bear Sanctuary across the border from Madhya Pradesh, has been spotted in camera traps and has even made prey kills in Gujarat.
“This is really good news for us, because for the first time in years we have tigers, lions and leopards, three of the big cats in India, in our state,” A.P. Singh, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) in Gujarat, told ThePrint. “We want to establish a habitat so more tigers come back to Gujarat.”
When the tiger first wandered in, the state forest department officials watched cautiously to see if it would build a base in the state. Earlier too, a few tigers had wandered into Gujarat from nearby Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, but would go back just as easily.
However, after nine months of consistent spotting and the tiger even killing prey, the forest department is confident that it could establish its territory in the state. They want to aid in the process too.
“Until a tiger mates with a female and has cubs in an area, you cannot say that it has established its territory, and you cannot call it a resident tiger,” explained Singh. “We want to see if a female tiger can be translocated to Gujarat so we can aid the mating.”
According to the PCCF, the Gujarat forest department is in discussions with other states and plans to write to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to help establish a base for the animal in Gujarat. While the Dahod district, in eastern Gujarat, borders both Rajasthan and MP, Singh said he would rather have a tiger from MP come to the state.
“It is easier for them to adjust to Gujarat’s surroundings and natural landscape, because MP and Gujarat share many similar features,” he said. “We also want to make this as seamless and natural as possible.”
No plans have been officially confirmed yet but Singh said the forest department wants the NTCA’s advice on how best to ensure the tiger establishes its territory in the Ratanmahal sanctuary.
“There was a time when Gujarat was the only region in the world where all four big cats could be found. But that was before the 1940s,” said Raza Kazmi, conservationist and wildlife historian.
Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952, and Gujarat slowly began losing its wild tigers, mainly to hunting and poaching, and then also due to a lack of prey.
Tigers, according to the Gujarat forest department’s website, have been absent in Gujarat since 1997, when the last resident tiger was spotted in the wild. The forest department said that since then, there have been instances where tigers have wandered in from other states, but none have managed to establish a territory or become residents of the state.
Now, the coming of the male tiger from MP has given a fresh lease to Gujarat’s plan of becoming the only state in India to host all three big cat species at once. The plan doesn’t end here though: the state wants to bring back its lost glory of housing all four big cat species.
“We are very eager to bring cheetahs to Gujarat too, and have already built a breeding centre in the Banni grasslands of Kutch district. Very soon, we will have all four big cats in Gujarat,” said Singh.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)