In Search Of A Home, Wandering Tiger Picks Up Its Pace
In the process, it walked into the Siddipet district and is now learnt to be moving in a northerly direction at a fairly fast clip, and likely heading back the way it first came from: Reports
HYDERABAD: Apparently having had enough of wandering in fields and open areas without cover where it can find shelter and settle down to establish its territory, the tiger which made its way to Jangaon district from Yadadri-Bhongir two days ago has decided to move on.
In the process, it walked into the Siddipet district and is now learnt to be moving in a northerly direction at a fairly fast clip, and likely heading back the way it first came from.
On Saturday, the tiger killed a calf in Jangaon district, not very far from the border with Siddipet into which it crossed, only to kill another calf. “Typically, one would expect the tiger to return to its kill after a few hours, or maybe a day later but in this case, it left both the cattle kills and kept going north. Our expectations are that it is retracing its route and may be returning to where it came from,” a forest department official said.
On Saturday, after its first cattle kill in Jangaon, the tiger is reported to have walked some 10 km into Siddipet, and then after the second kill, walked around another 10 km.
“So far, it has studiously avoided coming close to humans, and kept away from habitations. It most likely had a proper feeding around a week ago, and we thought it might take shelter in the vicinity and return to the kill but it seems to have something else in its mind,” the official said.
That “something else” could be a return to the Kawal tiger reserve in erstwhile unified Adilabad district, where the tiger spent a couple of weeks after it entered Telangana from the Pandharkawada area north of Tipeshwar wildlife sanctuary in Maharashtra late last November.
If the tiger continues on its last reported direction of the path it has taken, it could make its way to Rajanna-Siricilla district, from where it first made its way into Siddipet around a month ago. If the tiger is indeed retracing its steps, then it could next find itself in Jagtial, then Nirmal in which part of the Kawal tiger reserve lies, or may go from Siddipet to Karimnagar, then on to Peddapalli, and from there to Mancherial and enter Kawal.
For now, forest department officials in Siddipet, and the neighbouring Jangaon, Yadadri-Bhongir, Rajanna Siricilla, and Karimnagar, are on the alert. “Its movements are being monitored continuously and if left alone, it poses no threat to anyone,” a forest department official said.
