Tiger escapes from Bandhavgarh

A sub-adult male tiger,kept in a soft enclosure along with his female sibling in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve of Madhya Pradesh,escaped by jumping a 10-feet chain-link fencing

A sub-adult male tiger,kept in a soft enclosure along with his female sibling in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve of Madhya Pradesh,on Tuesday night escaped by jumping a 10-feet chain-link fencing. The vanishing act came to light when the ground staff returned to the enclosure for the daily routine on Wednesday morning. A hunt was launched but the animal couldnt be traced till late on Thursday.

Field Director Chandrakant Patil said: We could see a lot of footmarks of cheetals all around the enclosure. It seems the tiger jumped out in pursuit of the cheetals. Asked if tigers can jump that high,Patil said,They can jump up to about 14 feet.

But why did the tiger choose to do it on Tuesday since cheetals could have ventured close to its enclosure earlier too? Patil explained: Cheetals dont come close to enclosures any time. In rainy season,however,the urine marks of the tigers get washed out,so cheetals can come very close with some false sense of security. We could trace the tigers pugmarks up to three km from the enclosure. We are still trying to locate it.

He,however,isnt deeply worried. The tiger was used to killing all kinds of animals we used to release in the enclosure. So,it may be able to survive on its own in the wild,which,in fact,would be a great thing. And if he isnt able to survive the rigours of the open wild,he has the option of returning to the enclosure. We have arranged to facilitate his entry back into the enclosure.

Second relocated tigress may be pregnant

In the first experiment of its kind in the world,two tigresses,T4 and T5,from Bandhavgarh were released in Panna last year. While T4 gave birth to two cubs earlier this year,sources said that T5 is also expecting and might deliver in a month or so. Panna FD Srinivas Murthy,however,said: She has mated at least thrice with a male. But we are not sure of her pregnancy yet. We will observe her closely.