More prey for tigers, plantations to join corridor areas on the anvil

Hyderabad:The forest department is pursuing plans to augment prey for the big cats in KB Asifabad district’s reserve forests that form a ‘tiger corridor’ between Maharashtra and Telangana. Also on the anvil is roping in of corporates, including state owned ones, to buy patches of land between the reserve forests and grow plantations to form a corridor for the tigers.

“This is part of the plan to ensure safe passage for tigers and other wildlife in the district which will get a protection boost once the tiger corridor areas are declared as a ‘conservation reserve’,” principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), R.M. Dobriyal said on Monday.

He told Deccan Chronicle that tiger movement in KB Asifabad district was only expected to increase in the years. “We are requesting all stakeholders to join hands in the effort to create a better tiger corridor, not just to keep the tigers safe but to ensure fewer, or better still, no conflicts with humans,” he said.

Part of these plans include ‘user agencies’ – companies or entities such as the Singareni Collieries Company Limited, and others, that have received forest land for their projects – to buy land parcels between the tiger corridor forest patches, and then grow plantations to create a contiguous forest belt till Kawal tiger reserve, designed as a sink for the excess tiger population from Maharashtra.

Dobriyal said a long-term action plan was being worked on, and this included prey augmentation for the tigers – steps to increase the big cat’s natural prey like deer. “Our effort will be to create conditions that the tigers that come become residents, and stay in forest areas and not get into conflict with the people,” he said.