A juvenile tiger that is being rehabilitated in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) is yet to have a large in-situ enclosure, which is necessary for the carnivore to learn hunting prey in a bigger forest terrain, as per the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
The tiger that was rescued as a five to nine-month-old cub from a tea estate near Valparai in September 2021 is currently kept in an open enclosure of 10,000 square feet at Manthirimattam in the core area of the ATR within the Manambolly forest range. It was released from a cage to the open enclosure in June 2022.
However, the NTCA’s SOP to deal with orphaned/abandoned tiger cubs and old/injured tigers in the wild recommends an in-situ circular enclosure of 50 hectares for the rewilding of abandoned cubs. As per the SOP, the enclosure should consist of two concentric circular plots with an inner circle of 10-15 hectares and an outer of 35-40 hectares. While the inner plot will house the tiger that is being rewilded, the outer circle is meant for prey species.
