Trekking tigers of Telangana - one third of state pug marked
Hyderabad: The tiger is slowly but surely forming a crescent in Telangana, making its presence felt in the past few years in no less than 13 of the 33 districts.
The presence of tigers in Telangana, over the past few years and this year, has been reported from Nizamabad, Nirmal, Adilabad, Komaram Bheem Asifabad, Mancherial, Peddapalli, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Mahbubabad, Mulugu, Nalgonda, and Nagarkurnool districts.
While the forests of Nagarkurnool and Nalgonda districts comprise the Amrabad tiger reserve, the forests in Adilabad, Nirmal, KB Asifabad, and Mancherial districts are part of the Kawal reserve which has seen transient tigers, making brief trips to this reserve.
The rest of the districts are in the non-tiger reserve areas.
Only the Amrabad reserve has a resident tiger population, while a few that migrated from tiger reserves in Maharashtra have made parts of the forest areas in KB Asifabad district their territories and have settled down.
The latest tiger, a male, that has been wandering in some of these districts over the past few weeks, has now made its way into the Bhadradri Kothagudem district on Friday, after crossing over from Mulugu forests.
“We may have seen this male before, but that was two years ago, likely on a long patrol, or may be seeking a territory or a breeding female, and it had gone back. We hope to capture some camera trap images of it in the next few days and compare with the ones from the past to see if it is the same male,” Bharadri-Kothagudem district forest officer Kista Goud told Deccan Chronicle.
This tiger may have been the one that came the last time all the way from Indravati tiger reserve in Chhattisgarh in 2021, Once the camera traps capture its images, it can be established from where exactly this tiger came from.
If from Indravati, then it has undertaken a really long walk into the Manuguru forest area in Kothagudem district as the distance between the location where its pugmarks were found, and Indravati, is nearly 200 km as the crow flies, which means it could have walked at least around 300 km so far.
“It’s definitely a male going by the size and shape of its pugmarks,” the official said. Since the tiger’s last visit was mapped in the district, officials have begun alerting people in villages along the possible route it might take this time too.
“Taking advantage of past data, camera traps are being installed ahead on the possible route the tiger might take to try and capture its images,” he added.