Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The state project to give nine felines (tigers and tigresses) to Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Odisha is still in the pipeline.
MP forest officials are hoping that the translocation of tigers to all three neighbouring states would take place in December.
To recall, a few months back, the state announced to give the tigers to neighbouring states so that they could add more big cats to their feline population and improve tiger genome distribution.
Out of the nine tigers, the maximum are to be given to Rajasthan.
Interacting with the Free Press, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Wildlife, Shubha Ranjan Sen said that most probably the tigers would be translocated in December.
Sources said that this would be the first time that the state would give its tigers to neighbouring states. Earlier, Madhya Pradesh gave tigers to adjoining states for free, but later CM Mohan Yadav instructed to get some other wild animals in lieu of the big cats so that the state s wildlife diversity could get a boost.
Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh s Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Wildlife, Arun Kumar Pandey told the Free Press that three tigresses were to be brought to his state from Madhya Pradesh and necessary permission in this regard had been obtained.
These three tigresses would be released in the Guru Ghasi Das Tiger Reserve and an enclosure had been prepared for them. He informed that the population of tigers in Chhattisgarh was a mere 35 and efforts were on to increase the feline population in the state.
He said that soon he would send a forest team to Madhya Pradesh to get the tigresses. But he could not say when they would be available for translocation, as it required quite some time to find and tranquilize the big cats.
In the meantime, Bandhavgarh, Satpura Tiger Reserve etc have identified the possible big cats which could be translocated to the neightbouring states.
