Meera Bhardwaj

Why receiving states now want Tadoba, not Madhya Pradesh India’s two largest tiger states are Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In Madhya Pradesh, tigers are spread across nearly the whole state. In Maharashtra, the big concentration is in Vidarbha, along the Gondwana and Satpura ranges. On paper, Madhya Pradesh is ahead if intra-state and inter-state relocations are added together. In 2018 it supplied Satkosia with India’s first inter-state pair. That move failed. The male was poached, and the female was drawn into human–wildlife conflict and sent back to Madhya Pradesh. Odisha has since shown no interest in taking tigers from Madhya Pradesh. The contrast is Tadoba. Two tigresses from there, Yamuna and Zeenat, were moved to Similipal. Zeenat settled and produced four cubs. For the second phase, Odisha has therefore named Maharashtra as the only source: two females and one male are to come to Similipal. Maharashtra has also moved animals inside the state. Three tigresses have gone to Sahyadri and one to Navegaon–Nagzira, and they are breeding. That record of settlement and early adaptation is why the NTCA has indicated that the five tigers approved for Kawal should also come from this Maharashtra landscape. Rajasthan is lined up for three tigresses: one from Kanha, now Madhya Pradesh’s remaining source reserve kanha tiger reserve, and two from the same Tadoba landscape. I still have no confirmed report that the two tigresses already moved have mated. The pattern so far is hard to ignore. Tigresses from Maharashtra’s Gondwana landscape seem to adapt to a new range more readily. What is your reading of this? #tigerrelocation #wildlifeofmp #wildlifeofmaharastra #bigcaradeptation #forestecology #tadobatigerreserve