Tigress translocated to Panna Tiger Reserve

4 Mar 2009, 1330 hrs IST, PTI

BHOPAL: A tigress has been translocated from the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve to the Panna Tiger Reserve in eastern Madhya Pradesh, with an aim to increase the population of the feline in Panna.

The tigress reached the reserve, spread in an area of 542 sq km in Panna and Chhatarpur districts, by road in the wee hours, forest officials said today, adding one more feline will be translocated to Panna from the same reserve.

“The tigress was tranquilized in the presence of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) officials and captured last evening. The feline left our park around 1600 hours yesterday for Panna,” Bandhavgarh Reserve Director Aseem Shrivastava said.

Initially, the plan was to airlift the tigress by a helicopter but as the Indian Air Force (IAF) chopper was not available till March 8, the forest officials decided to translocate the big cat by road, Shrivastava said.

All necessary precautions were taken to take the tigress from Bandhavgarh to Panna by road, covering a distance of around 250 km.

Forest officials from MP took up the exercise of shifting the feline from Bandhavgarh tiger reserve following reports of dwindling tiger population in the Panna reserve, forest department sources said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Tigress-shifted-to-Panna/articleshow/4222724.cms

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