No resident tigers spotted in Kawal Tiger Reserve so far, exposes multiple issues

All through the exercise, images of leopards, antelopes and other wild animals were recorded, but of no tiger, much to the disappointment of trackers, the official said.

Hyderabad: Even as the tiger numbers in the Amrabad Tiger Reserve (ATR) are on the rise, there have been hardly any resident tigers found in the Kawal Tiger Reserve (KTR), exposing multiple issues that need to be addressed by the Forest department.

In the recently concluded annual Phase IV monitoring, ATR officials documented 33 individual tigers, which was the highest in the State. Among these, many were breeding tigers, which would further increase the numbers in the reserve in the next few years. Over 170 trackers worked hard from December 12, 2023 to May 2, 2024 as part of the monitoring exercise in ATR. On the contrary, the Kawal Reserve is behind the schedule and is expected to complete the exercise only by November, a senior official said.

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The worrying factor was that during the exercise so far, officials could not find any resident tigers. All through the exercise, images of leopards, antelopes and other wild animals were recorded, but of no tiger, much to the disappointment of trackers, the official said.

Like ATR, Kawal is also spread over a vast area and covers nearly 2000 square km. Still a few areas were to be covered in the Phase IV monitoring and the department was working on to install more camera traps in these areas. Over 80 camera traps were used so far and 20 more were being arranged to install in different areas as part of the exercise.

On the reasons behind no resident tigers being found in Kawal, the official said tigers usually migrate into the reserve from Maharashtra through Asifabad. However, they do not make Kawal their home and keep moving out, he said.

The Sirpur-Kaghaznagar belt is one of the conduits for the tigers to move into Kawal from Tadoba in the neighbouring State but has fragmented forest patches. Earlier this year, there were quite a few incidents of tigers found dead in Darigaon village in the Kaghaznagar forest division. This apart, the prey base in Kawal is not high as compared with ATR for the tigers to stay put in the reserve. Though the Forest department had relocated two villages from the core area of the reserve, development of grasslands in vast areas was another challenge. Local shepherds and farmers leave their cattle to graze in the reserve areas, affecting the prey base.

In 2022, the Management Effective Evaluation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority had directed the State Forest department to constitute Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF) in both ATR and Kawal. It wanted 112 staff to be deployed in each unit as was being done in Maharashtra, but no measures were taken in this regard so far. The NTCA had also wanted the officials to explore possibility of increasing the number of base camps in the two tiger reserves in view of the vast areas covered by the two reserves. This apart, recommendations were made to explore ways and means for increasing funds under Tiger Conservation Foundation (TCF) by way of revenue from ecotourism activities and receiving support from corporate and banks under CSR.