Kaziranga National Park, Assam, 13 July 2020:
A joint team of Wildlife Trust of India, Kaziranga National Park (KNP) Forest Officials, State Police and civic administration were able to guide two stranded tigers back to the wild on two consecutive days.
WTI team led by Dr. Shamshul Ali, WTI veterinarian, animal keepers Lakhiram Das, Romen Das, Raju Kutum and Aftab Ahmed, WTI Biologist together with a joint team of Kaziranga National Park led by P Sivakumar, KNP Director rushed to the site, a goat shed where the tiger had taken shelter ensuring its safe passage back to the forest.
Tiger stranded in goat shed, Pic @Aftab Ahmed, WTI
The team ensured isolation from the crowd, which was essential to give the animal time to regain its energy and move back to its natural habitat where it would be safe. While Rabin Sharma, research officer, KNP assessed through photos and videos that it didn’t have any external injury, the team decided to wait and watch until sunset to allow the animal to move under cover of darkness back to the park.
Standby preparations were made for a rescue by WTI team, as a backup plan. This fortunately wasn’t needed, as with sunset, the tiger had started moving and took shelter in a bamboo thicket on its own.
“We had planned to guide the animal in darkness after villagers returned to the homes and accordingly an announcement was also made for the villagers to remain at home for safety.” said Dr Samshul Ali.
The team started guiding the tiger towards the forest. This exercise took about an hour as it swam through the inundated fields until it disappeared in the darkness towards the park boundary of eastern forest range of Kaziranga National Park.
The entire operation took eleven hours including ‘wait and watch’.
Second tiger (was stranded today, 14th July, near a house, WTI – Forest Range Team enabled safe passage), Pic @ Daoharu Baro, WTI
Appreciating the team effort in this tiger rescue, P Sivakumar, Director, Kaziranga National Park summarized “The operation was very smooth. WTI CWRC, villagers, police and civil administration extended timely support.” He thanked all the stakeholders including the community for maintaining calm and allowing the experts do their job unhindered.
At the time of filing this, we got fresh reports of yet another tiger stranded today morning (14th July) near a house in KNP fringe, which was also given safe passage today morning by a joint team lead by Bagori Forest Range Officer and WTI.
WTI has been working in North East India since 2000 ensuring displaced and distressed wildlife have a fair chance of going back to the wild.
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