Did Rajaji tiger stroll 500 km to Jammu? Military has a photograph; forest dept says appears photoshopped | Lengthy Reads Information

Whereas the Military ROP has clicked {a photograph} of the tiger, the forest division has concluded that the picture gave the impression to be “photoshopped” as no signal of tiger presence has been discovered within the space regardless of repeated floor surveys over six months.

The {photograph} of the tiger taken by Military.

The Military PRO in Jammu declined to both verify or deny the tiger sighting. Sources in its Udhampur base mentioned the native forest division ruffled feathers by asking the ROP for the cellular system used to take the tiger photograph with the intention to confirm its authenticity. The request was ignored, closing the communication channel.

What makes the ‘tiger sighting’ significantly intriguing is the lacking coordinates of a younger male tiger that ventured out of Uttarakhand’s Rajaji Tiger Reserve in November 2022.

By August 2023, the tiger had negotiated farmland, highways and rivers to achieve Renuka Wildlife Sanctuary in Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh, after making a short cease at Haryana’s Kalesar Nationwide Park. It has not been traced since.

Requested if the tiger ‘sighted’ on the Bhimber Gali (BG)-Surankot street connecting Rajouri and Poonch might be the Rajaji tiger that went off the radar final August, Dr Bivash Pandav of Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India mentioned “it is vitally a lot attainable.”

Tigers have been discovered at altitudes a lot larger than Jammu’s. In 2012, one was camera-trapped at 13,800 ft in Bhutan’s Jigme Dorji Nationwide Park. In Uttarakhand, tigers had been recorded at 12,000 ft in Askot Wildlife Sanctuary in 2016 and at 11,256 ft in Kedarnath Musk Deer sanctuary in 2019. For the Rajaji tiger, if it did truly discover its means as much as Rajouri, the true problem would have been the tenuous forest connectivity between Uttarakhand and Jammu.

“The Shivalik forests are related till Ropar (Himachal Pradesh) which isn’t removed from the southern tip of the Pir Panjal vary. It is extremely a lot attainable that the Rajaji tiger used the practical connectivity to achieve the Jammu area. However its long-term prospect there may be unsure,” mentioned Dr Pandav, who has studied tigers of Rajaji TR since 2003.

Former head of Mission Tiger Dr Rajesh Gopal mentioned he wouldn’t “wager towards a tiger discovering its means by way of blended land use” areas. “Dispersing male tigers are recognized to stroll lengthy distances towards all odds. Prior to now, such sightings had been additionally reported from the hills of Himachal however couldn’t be confirmed as a result of transient nature of the animals,” he defined.

Dr Dharmendra Khandal, who has studied tiger dispersal from Rajasthan’s Ranthambore tiger reserve over twenty years, defined {that a} cat dispersing over tons of of kilometres might not keep put at one location for too lengthy to be tracked simply.

“If a tiger has walked over 500 km, it’s on the lookout for an acceptable forest to quiet down. Usually, such a tiger is unlikely to hold round in a single forest patch for too lengthy. In all probability that’s the reason it was not noticed once more within the space the place it was photographed,” he mentioned.

There was a delay of two weeks between the ‘tiger sighting’ on July 5 and the primary spot inspection by the native forest workers on July 18. Requested if digicam traps had been put in within the space, Amit Sharma, wildlife warden, Rajouri-Poonch division, mentioned that the sector workers didn’t discover any tiger indicators — similar to pug marks and scat — and native grazers didn’t report any lack of livestock both.

“Surprisingly, just one photograph was taken although the tiger was seen stress-free. The photograph seems photoshopped, in any other case the presence of such a big carnivore can’t go undetected for six months. No one responded to our request for entry to the handset used to take the photograph. I’ll now search permission to shut the case,” he mentioned.

J&Okay Chief Wildlife Warden Sarvesh Rai and Nationwide Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) member-secretary G S Bhardwaj confirmed Sharma’s conclusions.

Explaining the Military’s reluctance to have interaction, a senior officer in Udhampur mentioned, “A soldier’s cellular is just not up for scrutiny for volunteering data. Each company has its mandate and a Street Opening Occasion is just not speculated to cease and movie tigers. It’s preposterous to recommend that certainly one of us doctored a photograph however we don’t need any controversy and have closed the chapter.”

Whereas Himachal’s Sirmaur and Haryana’s Kalesar forests had a sizeable tiger inhabitants till the late 1800s, Jammu was by no means a part of India’s tiger map. Within the Nineties, nonetheless, there have been contested reviews of two tiger sightings from Rajouri’s Dera Gali and Kathua’s Billawar areas.

Explaining that these might be tigers dispersing from decrease areas, Dr Gopal mentioned that tiger reserves, like Rajaji, are the supply from the place surplus tigers fan out seeking to populate ‘sink’ (vacant) areas.

“On this source-and-sink mannequin, it’s pure to lose some dispersing tigers. The concept is to develop vital areas as viable tiger habitats. Jammu is slightly far out however a proposal to declare the forests in Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Kalesar (Haryana) and Simbalbara (Himachal Pradesh) as an inter-state tiger reserve has been pending for the reason that early 2000s,” he mentioned.