It's raining tiger cubs in Amrabad Tiger Reserve

HYDERABAD: At Telangana’s Amrabad tiger reserve, this year is turning out to be one where the staff will be busy with baby showers — of tiger cubs. With 10 confirmed tiger cubs, and maybe two more that their mothers may have hidden from the prying eyes of camera traps, 2023 could just turn into a watershed year for India’s second largest tiger reserve.

“We have four tigresses with cubs,” N. Kshitija, ATR’s field director, told Deccan Chronicle. “We have over the past several months increased our patrolling. If the tigers are feeling comfortable enough to breed, it is because of efforts by the staff and officers keeping disturbances under check,” she said.

A tigress, F18, has four cubs, followed by F7 which has three and F11 which has one. F6, popular as Farah Female because of its territory in Farhabad beat of the reserve, has cubs but officials are not sure how many yet. “We also suspect another tigress, F26, has cubs but these too have not been caught in any of the camera traps,” ATR’s district forest officer for Nagarkurnool Rohit Gopidi said.

Of the ATR landscape of around 30 tigers, Gopidi said at least 20 were being photographed at least once every month by the camera traps – motion-triggered cameras set up near animal paths, and other locations.

Even as the number of births has brought in a lot of excitement for ATR’s staff, another development has been the adoption of the tiger reserve by an alpha male tiger that has moved into the tiger reserve in Telangana from the Nagarjunasagar Srisailam tiger reserve (NSTR) in Andhra Pradesh.

The River Krishna forms the border between the two tiger reserves and the alpha male, usually moving around Vatvarlapally inside ATR, is believed to have been driven away by another tiger from NSTR during a territorial battle. Tigers being excellent swimmers, officials said, the alpha male crossed Krishna and appears to have settled down in the Amrabad tiger reserve.

Kshitija said a lot of effort had gone in to forging a spirit of teamwork among the staff of the reserve and steps were taken to address the challenges they face. “For instance, in some areas, we found there were no paths for the beat officers. By creating paths, not only have we increased access to more areas to keep a watch on, but this also helped cut our response time to tackle fires from two hours in some locations to just around 40 minutes,” she said.

“This took us around three years. Earlier some of the staff used to see work as hard, now they talk in language of tracking, keeping an eye on tigers, noting if they are pregnant, or with cubs, or file reports of mating activities,” Gopidi said, adding, “Now we are better able to understand territories of individual tigers, and this is helping us cut down human disturbance in their territories.”