A male tiger from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, Yavatmal, travelled 500 km to Solapur district. The Maharashtra Forest Department plans to capture, radio-collar, and release it at the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve
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Tiger travels 500 km from Yavatmal to Solapur, to be relocated to Sahyadri
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The young male dispersing tiger from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Yavatmal (southwest of Nagpur), which walked approximately 500 kilometres to reach Solapur district, will be captured and released back at the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve—300 kilometres from Mumbai and spread across the districts of Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, and Ratnagiri.
A senior forest department official said, “The decision to capture the tiger that walked from Yavatmal to Dharashiv in Solapur district has been taken. The team from Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) will be reaching Dharashiv soon, after which the process to capture the tiger will begin. The tiger will be captured and radio-collared before being released at the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve.”
Sources from the Maharashtra Forest Department told this newspaper that permissions have been obtained from higher authorities, and the tiger will be radio-collared before being released back at Sahyadri Tiger Reserve.
The Maharashtra Forest Department teams, along with the Pune-based RESQ Charitable Trust, have been closely monitoring the tiger’s movements. Camera traps have been installed in the area to track its further movements. At present, the young male tiger is said to be in the Barshi taluka of Solapur district.
According to researchers, the male tiger is the cub of tigress T22 from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary and was born there in 2022.
In Solapur district, some farmers had brought to the notice of forest department officials that there had been an increase in cattle attacks in recent weeks. This prompted the department to install camera traps, which revealed the surprising presence of the male tiger. This marks the first recorded sighting of a tiger in Yedshi Ramalinga Wildlife Sanctuary in Dharashiv district, Marathwada.
The male tiger, approximately 2.5 years old, is believed by researchers to have travelled in search of new territory.
The tiger has been moving between Solapur district and Dharashiv.
In June 2019, a tiger named Walker, fitted with a radio collar, started its journey from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Yavatmal district, where it was born. By December 2019, it had reached Dnyanganga Sanctuary, having travelled through eight districts of Maharashtra and Telangana. Forest department officials were able to track the tiger’s movements until February 2020, after which the radio collar was removed.
Walker is said to have walked close to 3,000 kilometres, making him the longest-walking tiger ever tracked with a radio collar. Since the removal of the collar, there has been no information about Walker’s whereabouts.
In 2021, a young male tiger, T3C1, walked from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Vidarbha to Gautala Autram Sanctuary in Aurangabad, covering 330 kilometres.
The most interesting part of this journey was that the tiger managed to travel from Pandharkawda to Gautala without being spotted by anyone and without any human-animal conflict incidents.
The tiger was first captured on a camera trap on 15th March 2021. Forest department officials confirmed that it was the first tiger sighting in Gautala Wildlife Sanctuary since 1940. The image was matched with the tiger database, which identified it as T3C1 (also known as Walker 2), over two years old and originating from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Yavatmal district, Vidarbha.
Experts believe that this tiger walked from Pandharkawda, Umarkhed, and some parts of Telangana, before passing through Akola, Dnyanganga (Buldhana), Hingoli, and Ajanta mountain ranges to finally reach Gautala—a journey of close to 2,000 kilometres.
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