The tiger with radio collar at Manas National Park. Picture by Jimmy Bora

Jorhat, Jan. 14: Forest officials heaved sigh of relief when a Royal Bengal tiger, captured in Sivasagar district after being embroiled in man-animal conflict and released at Manas National Park after being fitted with a radio collar about eight months ago, was located a couple of days back.

This was the first tiger in the state to have been fitted with a radio collar.

The radio collar was fitted by the International Fund for Animal Welfare-Wildlife Trust of India (IFAW-WTI).

“We have been trying to track the tiger for several months now but in vain. However, the tiger was caught on camera a few days back. It’s safe and looks healthy,” the forest official told The Telegraph.

The adult male tiger was tranquillised and captured from a human settlement by the forest department with assistance from the IFAW-WTI in March last year. It had killed two persons in Sivasagar district.

After short-listing three potential areas, Manas National Park was decided on as the most suitable place for the tiger. Accordingly, it was radio-collared for post-release monitoring and released at Manas.

Although the post-release monitoring continued, no signals were received from the tiger’s collar after a month from its release.

“We began receiving the signal again since mid-November, after a long gap. It was photo-captured on camera traps placed by Aaranyak, ATREE and WWF-India at Manas only a few days back. We are continuing to track it, though the signals received are inconsistent as the battery on the radio collar is dying. The radio collar is expected to drop off any time now,” Bhaskar Choudhury, an official of the WTI, said.

He said the best part, however, was the fact that there has no reports of direct conflict between the tiger and people residing near Manas. “There are no reports of the tiger killing any cattle in the last few months,” Choudhury said.

With no reports of attacks on humans reported since the tiger was released at Manas, translocation of a conflict tiger at a different location promises to strengthen the case for rehabilitation of tigers that accidentally come into contact with people.

“The photographs acquired through camera-traps indicate its survival in the wild. And there has been no report of attacks on people by this tiger since its release, presenting hope that rehabilitation can be a viable option for tigers involved in conflicts,” another official of the WTI said.

He said generally tigers involved in killing of humans are sent to zoos after being captured and in most cases these animals are killed.

“When tigers involved in conflict are captured, a nagging fear of further conflict sways the decision against these animals; they are put away ‘safely’ in zoos. Additionally, adult males have a ‘homing’ tendency, raising doubts on the success of such translocation. However, in this case, the authorities took a call in favour of giving the animal another chance and it has paid off,” the official said.