TN forest dept to rewild a tiger; will the beast survive the forest?

In September 2021, a male tiger cub was found wandering alone at the Thaimudi estate near the Manambolly forest range in Anaimalai Tiger Reserve (ATR), Coimbatore. The cub had a porcupine quill in its body and was very weak. After waiting for a few days for the return of the cub’s mother, officials from the Tamil Nadu forest department rescued the animal and began its treatment.

Now, the cub is stronger and healthier and the forest department has decided to rewild it.

“Initially, discussions were made to accommodate the tiger cub in one of the zoos in the State,” said Shekhar Kumar Niraj, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wild Life Warden. “But, after multiple discussions, a decision was made to rewild the tiger using scientific protocols, and subsequent steps are being taken to execute it. A separate committee was also formed to constantly monitor the tiger. This is the first time the forest department is rewilding a tiger cub in the State.”

Phased rewilding

Forest officials are carrying out the rewilding in a phased manner. “As the initial step, an enclosure is being set up in a 10,000 sq ft area at the Manthirimattam reserve forest in the Manambolly forest range,” said S Ramasubramanian, field director of ATR. “We have set up a cage, an artificial cave and a water trough inside the enclosure apart from creating trenches to prevent the entry of other animals into the enclosure.”

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Via multiple CCTV cameras and through other scientific methods, the cub will be monitored constantly for more than a year. It will be released into the forest only if it successfully carries out 50-60 hunts on its own. It has to prove it can survive on its own in the forest, said Ramasubramanian, adding that per the guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a tiger can be released into the forest only after it attains the age of two.

“We are hopeful that the programme will be successful in the State because the tiger still has the wild instinct and has restricted human interaction to the maximum extent. So far, only one caretaker is allowed near the tiger to feed it and clean its cage. He even wears a tiger face mask. No other human including the officials have gone near the tiger. It is kept in a natural forest environment,” he explained.

Niraj said that at present, the tiger is in the stage of undergoing psychological and physical transformation to ready itself for a forest life.

Success rate

However, wildlife activists said the success rate of the tiger rewilding programme is not known and there are multiple instances of the animal getting killed after being released in the forest.

The programme has both success and failure stories. For instance, in the Kanha tiger reserve, the Madhya Pradesh forest department had released two tigers into the forest under a rewilding programme; the tigers managed to survive and gave birth to cubs. But, in a similar instance in the Pench tiger reserve, located across Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, the rewilded tiger was killed by another tiger shortly after it was released into the forest, said AJT Johnsingh, a wildlife biologist.

According to him, the programme has a 50-50 chance and anything might happen to the tiger once it goes to the forest. But the programme requires enormous efforts right from monitoring the tiger and installing the CCTV cameras to recording its movements. This calls for huge funding for a successful implementation.

K Kalidas, president of environmental organization Osai, said: “Until recently, the forest department has been accommodating the abandoned tiger cub in its zoos and this is the first time, it has taken steps to send it back to the forest. That itself requires appreciation.

“At a time when the tiger population has increased, many more tiger cubs will be abandoned. It would not be wise to accommodate all the abandoned cubs in the zoo. For that, such an initiative is necessary. We will have to implement the programme on a trial-and-error basis and if it becomes successful, it will become a model.”