Bengaluru: The tension around Bandipur Tiger Reserves, where the forest officials have captured five tigers in just one week seems to be far from over.
According to the calculations of the forest department, who are monitoring the tiger movement through camera traps, it is suspected that around 21 tigers have moved to the fringes of the forests after failing to establish their own territories.
During the last two months, the number of tigers captured by the forest department has reached 10, but they are yet to track the movements of another 11 tigers, which are from all age groups. On Sunday morning itself, a tiger killed a cow near Saragur itself in front of the farmer.
According to forest officials, there have been multiple problems in the fringes of the Tiger Reserve. In the first place, the government had reduced the buffer zone from 10 kms to one km, which is barely any demarcation distance for large mammals like Tiger and Elephants. Secondly, the cropping pattern in the fringes has drastically changed during the last two decades.
Earlier, farmers in the fringes of farmers used rain based farming and cultivated cotton or tobacco, which were not affected by the wild animals. Besides, both the crops did not block the view of animal movements. During the last two decades, the farmers have used borewells to irrigate their lands and are cultivating more types of commercial crops, including banana. This actually gives a type of hideout for carnivores like Tiger and Leopard. Since most of the Gomals have been converted as agricultural lands, the farmers are forced to take their cattle right into the buffer zone, making them vulnerable to the wildlife attack. Since most of the persons accompanying cattle are old, they sit under trees, making themselves appear like prey for the carnivores.
Meanwhile, the forest department is facing another huge problem of wildlife veterinarians. As per NTCA Standard Operation Procedure (SOP), at least two trained wildlife veterinarians should accompany a tiger capture or rescue operation. However, barring zoos, the forest department has a severe shortage of trained veterinary doctors. Though Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre is speaking of setting up permanent wildlife vet cadre in the forest department and has written letter to NTCA, nothing concrete has taken place.
