Spurned by mother, it’s off to the zoo for these tiger cubs

There is barely a grille separating the cub from the mother in Van Vihar National Park here, but the tigress remains unconcerned about her frisky eight-month-old twins – Era and Sandhvi. The cubs’ efforts to befriend the mother by parking themselves at the grille have failed to move her. “Letting them live together is risky as the mother could kill them. The cubs can’t be released in the wild because they don’t know how to hunt and would either starve or become easy prey for others,” said Chouhan.

The tigress was brought here from Bandhavgarh on October 5 after she killed two people, who reportedly disturbed her while she was eating. Wildlife experts had contended that she could not be classified as a man-eater because humans had infringed on her territory. Forest authorities had been under pressure from local politicians to capture her.

The cubs got separated from the mother after she was tranquilised. They were five months old at the time and should have been brought along with the mother, now christened Bandhvi. It took forest officials nearly two weeks to catch the starving cubs and they were shifted to Bhopal on October 18. Chouhan said the two-week separation could have led the big cat to disown her cubs.

Bandhvi refused to eat the meat offered to her for days, till rules were broken and she was allowed to kill a live goat to save her from starvation. Unlike her, the hungry cubs lapped up whatever was offered to them.

The two are playful with each other and aggressive with the keeper, but are unlikely to learn the ways of the wild, feel forest officials.

“We have no plans to release them in the wild. It’s unfortunate but we can’t help it,” additional PCCF (wildlife) H S Pabla said.

The tigress not accepting her cubs has even led to allegations that foresters captured the wrong tigress in a hurry to escape criticism. But there has been no fresh attack since then, say forest officials.

Retired PCCF A P Dwiwedi has called for developing a protocol that would enable forest authorities to release such animals in the wild gradually. First, they could be released in a small enclosure and offered live baits and later, they could be set free in the wild, are some of the proposals being made.