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Time of India
20-05-2025
- Time of India
Forest authorities act after two tiger-related deaths in Pilibhit
File image used for representative purpose. PILIBHIT: In the wake of two fatal man-tiger encounters in Pilibhit — on May 13 in village Nazirganj and on May 18 in village Haripur Kishanpur — the PCCF (Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Wildlife) of UP, Anuradha Vemuri, took serious note of SOP violations. On Monday, she directed Pilibhit Tiger Reserve 's (PTR) field director, Vijay Singh, to submit a detailed report within 12 hours. She also instructed Dudhwa Tiger Reserve field director H Rajamohan to deploy experienced personnel to track the tigers responsible and identify them through pugmark analysis. Shahjahanpur assistant conservator Sushil Kumar failed in tracing and measuring pugmarks in both cases — crucial steps for identifying the tigers' sex, age, and whether one or two animals were involved. Vemuri also sought an explanation from Khutar Range Officer Manoj Shrivastav for his absence at both conflict sites. The villagers of the two affected villages in Pilibhit, which come under the jurisdiction of Khutar forest range of Shahjahanpur, repeatedly alerted forest officials regarding a month-long prowling of a tigress and a tiger in agricultural fields, but no remedial action was taken. The locals alleged that this apathetic attitude of forest officials was responsible for the loss of two lives. Forest personnel placed a cage in Nazirganj village near the spot of the fatal conflict, but without any live or inanimate bait — which villagers termed a deceptive measure. It is also strange that the camera traps installed near the two conflict spots failed to capture any images of the killer felines. The PCCF (Wildlife) said that as the concerned rural pocket was in proximity to the junction point of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve and Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, field forest teams of the two forest areas were constituted and deployed in the two villages. She said that once the feline was identified, immediate permission to tranquilise him or her would be granted. 'A team from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) was also sent to the spot to check the camera installation and to set up ANIDERS (Animal Intrusion Detection and Repellent System) in a bid to trace the felines,' she added.
Hans India
19-05-2025
- General
- Hans India
Turtle tagged with device reaches AP coast
Kendrapara: An Olive Ridley turtle, which was earlier tagged with a satellite-linked tracking device at Gahirmatha beach in Kendrapara district, has travelled around 1,000 km in the sea in 51 days to reach the Andhra Pradesh coast, an official said. The turtle traversed the waters of Sri Lanka, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu before reaching the coast of the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, he said. 'The turtle navigated through the sea waters of Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and reached the Andhra Pradesh coast in 51 days. It covered around 1,000 km,' the official said. The latest satellite tracking map of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has located one of the tagged turtles moving in the sea waters in Andhra Pradesh, and found that it has navigated around 1,000 km, said Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) Prem Kumar Jha. A turtle, tagged with a tracking device in Odisha four years back, had earlier covered 3,500 km to lay eggs at a beach in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra recently. The Olive Ridley turtles turn up in millions for mass nesting along the Odisha coast every year. Gahirmatha beach, off the Bay of Bengal, in Kendrapara district is acclaimed as the world's largest known nesting ground of these marine species. The aquatic animals also turn up at the Rushikulya river mouth in Ganjam district and the Devi river mouth in Puri for mass nesting. According to officials, around 3,000 turtles are tagged with a tracking device annually. Experts believed that at least 1 lakh turtles are required to be tagged for obtaining better information on their reproductive biology, movements and growth rates, migratory route and areas of foraging. The Odisha Forest department had taken up the tagging exercise in 1999, and at least two tagged turtles then were sighted on the Sri Lanka coast. Later, the tagging exercise was suspended, and the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) resumed the exercise in 2021. Between 2021 and 2024, around 12,000 turtles were tagged in Gahirmatha and Rushikulya river mouth nesting grounds, the officials said.
