Sariska seeks WII assistance on missing tiger

It’s been over one and half months but there is no sign of the missing Sariska tigress ST-5, besides the on and off radio signals from her collar. 

The tigress had gone off radar on February 24 and has not been located since then. Weak radio signals from her collar were received from March 28. 

Failing to trace her location, the Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) administration has now written to Wildlife Institute of India (WII) seeking assistance of experts. 

A senior STR official on anonymity said, “We have written to WII requesting to send experts to help locating the tigress. The radio collar on the tigress was installed by WII, which they were monitoring. We are receiving signals once in a while but are not being able to locate her.” He further added that the WII experts were informed repeatedly.  

The tigress was last seen on February 21 with a 4-year-old male tiger ST-11 in Umri area of the reserve. There it was observed that the radio collar was not functioning. There are chances that she might have mated with ST-11. On February 27, pugmark of the tigress was found but she was not sighted. 

After intensive day and night search operations by over 100 personnel, the STR administration in March end decided to launch phase-IV monitoring, a protocol of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for continuous monitoring of tiger reserves. 

Under phase-IV, the STR administration will be dividing the total area into grids of 2X2 km, which in total would be over 120 (grids). In each grid, one or two camera traps will be installed and around 250 cameras will be used. These cameras will be continuously monitored for 25 days. The data will be downloaded and checked daily by forest department teams. 

“The installation of the camera across the forest under phase-IV monitoring is almost complete,” said the official.