Male tiger spotted in Buxa reserve may still be there: Bengal forest official

Forest authorities in West Bengal believe that the elusive male Royal Bengal Tiger, which had strayed into Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) about a month ago and was last spotted in the first week of February, is still inside the reserve. ''There is a strong possibility that the tiger is deep inside the BTR, and we wish to keep it undisturbed,'' a senior official told PTI on Thursday. He said the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) compared the animal's photographs with the National Repository of Camera Trap Photographs of Tigers (NRCTPT) database for the North East Hills and Brahmaputra Flood Plains region. The NRCTPT database confirmed that the tiger's stripe pattern does not match those of the two previously recorded tigers in the BTR zone, the official said. ''The WII has informed us that this big cat had never been photographed in Assam's Manas National Park or even in part of Bhutan's forested landscape, which is connected to Buxa through the Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary,'' the official said. Referring to an earlier sighting, the official said a tiger photographed in Buxa in 2023 had matched records from Manas National Park, leading authorities to believe it had migrated from there. The photograph of the newly sighted tiger, which was previously unrecorded, has now been archived in the national database to help trace its origin and determine whether it had evaded surveillance in other forest zones, he added. ''The extensive forest cover of the North East Hills and Bhutan perhaps made camera-trapping very challenging, raising the possibility that the animal was not previously photographed in Manas,'' the official said. West Bengal Forest Minister Birbaha Hansda recently told PTI the spotting of the third big cat in BTR is an encouraging sign as the department wants the area to turn into another tiger habitat like the Manas Sanctuary in Assam. ''However, as part of habitat augmentation measures, some villages need to be relocated, which may take a few years. Once this is done, Buxa will have its resident tiger population where both tigers from other forests like Manas can be relocated as well as big cats straying from neighbouring forests can settle naturally,'' she said.