A male Royal Bengal Tiger may have travelled across four States, covering over 2,000 km of forested terrain over past five months, in search of a suitable territory abundant with prey, or perhaps a potential mate.
Officials of Parlakhemundi Forest Division of Odisha’s Gajapati district have been tracking the movement of one tiger in particular over the past three months. The aforesaid tiger was photographed by a camera installed to estimate tiger populations in the Kumilisingi beat of the Debagiri Range within the Parlakhemundi forest division on Tuesday. Anand S., Divisional Forest Officer of Parlakhemundi, reported that the tiger has been consistently moving in that area since then.
Providing details on how the tiger was spotted in Gajapati, a region that had never recorded tiger sightings before, Mr. Anand said, “About a month ago, the tiger was captured on camera in the Gajapati forest. We sent the image to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for mapping, and they confirmed that the camera-trapped image matched with a tiger previously photographed in the Brahmapuri forest division of Maharashtra. Tigers exhibit unique stripe patterns, akin to human fingerprints, making it evident that this particular tiger originated from Maharashtra.”
