Madhya Pradesh tigress gasping for life in Odisha

BHOPAL: In a major setback to the country’s first ever inter-state tiger translocation project, tigress Sundari is said to be in a critical condition owing to injuries it suffered while being recaptured from Satkosia Tiger Reserve of Odisha.
It’s back-to-back bad news as only two days ago, it was confirmed that tiger MB2, the first big cat to be transferred from MP to Odisha, was dead, likely killed by poachers.
Sources say two darts were shot to tranquilise Sundari on November 6 after its second suspected human kill in Odisha. One of the darts apparently hit her in the back and she has not recovered from the injuries. Some reports say she is limping.
Sundari was captured at Majhipada in Satkosia Tiger Reserve, Odisha. There were experts from Wildlife Institute of India and Kanha Tiger Reserve, besides local wildlife & veterinary officials, during the operation. The tigress was darted after she came back to finish eating a buffalo calf placed as bait. After being captured, she was taken to Raiguda, around 20km away, and put in an enclosure.
The tigress was translocated from MP’s Bandhavgarh to Odisha on June 28 this year. After a period of acclimatization in an open enclosure, she was released in Satkosia on August 17. Within days, villagers started protesting. The wildlife wing of Odisha forest department decided to capture Sundari on October 23, two days after she allegedly killed a farmer in Tainsi village of Angul district. It was the second suspected human kill after a woman in Hatibari village of the same district on September 12.
Angry villagers had damaged forest department property in both cases, prompting the government to move divisional forest officer SMT Rahman to another division. The forest department decided to capture Sundari and put her back in an enclosure after coming under intense pressure from both locals and wildlife experts, who blamed the department for being overzealous in carrying out the translocation soon after it was awarded the project.
Wildlife activist Ajay Dubey fears the chances of Sundari’s survival in Odisha are dim unless intense care is taken. “The decision to keep it in quarantine is also wrong. Forest officials in both states are accountable for this,” Dubey said.