In a significant milestone for tiger conservation in India, a tigress from Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve was released into West Bengal’s Buxa Tiger Reserve on Friday, marking the start of a phased programme to reintroduce tigers to the area after decades without a stable resident population.
The tigress was released in the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who said that three more tigers would be introduced into Buxa over the next two months. “Earlier, it was a tiger reserve only in name. There were no tigers there,” he said, in a jibe at the previous Trinamool Congress government.
Adhikari also announced plans to develop a world-class tourism centre on 2,000 acres near Jayanti and said the Union government had sought an inspection of the proposed site.
In a post on X, Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said the reintroduction fulfilled a major conservation commitment and thanked the Bihar and West Bengal governments.
“Inspired by PM Shri @narendramodi ji’s push for landscape conservation and species protection, today we have fulfilled the significant promise to reintroduce tiger in Buxa. T138 has been brought from Valmiki Tiger Reserve from Bihar to Buxa. I thank Bihar Chief Minister Shri @samrat4bjp and West Bengal Chief Minister Shri @SuvenduWB for their support in this successful reintroduction. #TigerBackInBuxa…,” the post read.
The Buxa Tiger Reserve
Historically an important tiger landscape of north Bengal, Buxa was declared a tiger reserve in 1983, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change said in a statement.
“It forms part of a larger ecological landscape with connectivity to forests and protected areas of Bhutan and Assam. Over the decades, however, habitat degradation and fragmentation, changes in land use and decline in prey availability affected the ecological conditions required to sustain a resident tiger population. The Reserve subsequently witnessed a prolonged absence of a stable resident tiger population,” the statement added.
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According to the statement, the tigress’s release marks the first phase of a planned, phased and adaptive recovery programme. “It marks a fitting beginning of India’s Wildlife Week 2026, with the initiation of a phased Tiger Reintroduction Programme aimed at restoring a viable and self-sustaining tiger population in this historically important tiger landscape,” it added.
Steps taken since 2018
Terming the recovery of Buxa “a sustained, science-based effort”, the ministry said that the state’s Tiger Augmentation and Recovery Project, initiated with support from the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India, has been implemented collaboratively since 2018.
To support recovery efforts, authorities have released more than 800 chital into the reserve and restored or converted about 380 hectares of grassland since 2018. Camera traps also recorded tiger movement in the landscape in 2021, 2023 and 2026, including one tiger matched to Manas Tiger Reserve in Assam.
“The recovery of tigers in Buxa is also significant at the landscape level. Its ecological linkages with North Bengal, Assam and Bhutan provide opportunities for movement and dispersal of wildlife across a larger connected landscape. Strengthening Buxa therefore has implications not only for tiger conservation but also for the conservation of forests, grasslands, prey species and wider biodiversity,” the statement said, adding that the tigress’s release represents the “beginning of a new chapter” in Buxa’s conservation journey.
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What next?
The tigress will be subject to intensive post-release monitoring using telemetry, camera trapping and field-based monitoring. This will enable assessment of its movement, adaptation, health and behaviour, the statement said.
“The programme is not merely about bringing tigers back to Buxa. Its objective is to create the conditions in which a tiger population can establish, breed and ultimately become viable and self-sustaining,” it added.
Future introductions, the statement said, would depend on scientific assessments of habitat suitability, prey availability, population viability and expert advice. “Community participation remains central to this recovery effort. The programme has engaged 64 eco-development committees/joint forest management committees, with emphasis on community dialogue, livelihood opportunities, human-wildlife conflict mitigation and conservation-linked benefits,” the ministry further said.
