Team looking for the tiger on foot says monsoon making search difficult because of slippery dirt tracks and overgrown foliage
Search operations for Jai, the missing star of Umred Karandla Wildlife Sanctuary, have begun, with a team from the Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF) from Pench joining in. The teams who are patrolling on foot are, however, finding the going difficult because of the monsoon, as the dirt tracks have become slippery and there is an overgrowth of foliage making the paths difficult to navigate.
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Special Tiger Protection Force joined the search team for Umred Karandla Wildlife Sanctuary’s Jai. Pic/Amit Panaria
Srinivas Reddy, field director and Chief Conservator of Forests at the Pench Tiger reserve and Umred Karhanmdla Wildlife Sanctuary, said, “We have already started search operations along with various NGOs and wildlife lovers. We are hoping for a positive outcome soon.”
Some wildlife photographers and people from wildlife conservation are of the opinion that the decision to radio-collar Jai was wrong as it was only after this that the star of the Nagpur sanctuary started avoiding tourists.
A wildlife photographer associated with ClaW, which had announced a reward of R50,000 for finding Jai, said, “I have been photographing Jai and other tigers at the sanctuary for four years now and he was never scared of people or vehicles. But, last year, after he was fitted with a radio collar, he began to avoid being seen in the open.”
“Radio collars are extremely useful and give a huge amount of data to scientists, but they also have a negative impact as the animal has to be tranquilised for this, causing trauma,” he said.
Some wildlife experts feel that Jai may have gone towards Navegaon National Park or towards the Gadchiroli forest.
Honorary wildlife warden Roheet Karoo, who was responsible for the formation of the sanctuary, said, “We have been closely monitoring Jai and he always went for the big kill. He has even killed cattle. We are speaking to villagers to find out if any of their cattle are missing, which would indicate that Jai is somewhere around,” Karoo said.
Wildlife activists are also angry with the Wildlife Institute of India for taking three months to realise that Jai had gone missing. “They had radio-collared Jai and it was their duty to inform the authorities immediately when the signals stopped,” said a wildlife activist.
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