Tigresses With Cubs To Share Space With People For Saleshwaram Jatara
The three-day festival, traditionally celebrated by the local indigenous Chenchu tribals, will see prayers offered at the Lingamayya temple in Saleshwaram, deep inside a ravine with a perennial water source inside the tiger reserve.
HYDERABAD: The increasingly popular annual three-day Saleshwaram Jatara inside the Amrabad tiger reserve that will begin from Thursday involving an arduous 4 km up and down trek steep hillsides over rocky terrain, is expected to attract a few lakh visitors from all over the state.
“We have made all possible preparations to ensure smooth conduct of the event, and are receiving a tremendous amount of help from the district police. The goal is to ensure an incident and trouble free event,” Dr Sunil Hiremath, field director of the tiger reserve said on Wednesday.
The three-day festival, traditionally celebrated by the local indigenous Chenchu tribals, will see prayers offered at the Lingamayya temple in Saleshwaram, deep inside a ravine with a perennial water source inside the tiger reserve. Visitors will be allowed to either take a RTC bus from the entry point into the reserve at Farhabad Gate, or take their own vehicle but with an entry fee.
The visit involves a 17-km drive from Farhabad Gate, then a two-km trek down to the tiny temple hewn into the rock of the ravine, and another trek back to where buses will be parked. “All vehicles will not be allowed till the last point. We have identified spots where vehicles can be parked, and from where people can go to the temple either on foot, or take a two-km autorickshaw ride before starting their trek,” a forest department official said.
“To reduce the disturbance to the forest and wildlife as much as possible, we plan to send the vehicles in batches and the expectations are that those who go in, will exit by sundown, but this may not be fully possible,” Dr Hiremath said.
Incidentally, the 17-km drive from Farhabad Gate up to the point where the trek begins, as well the temple area itself, fall inside the territories of two female tigers – F-38, and F-53, both of which are now raising two cubs each. While F-38’s cubs are believed to be four or five months old, F-53’s cubs are reaching the sub-adult stage.
“We have seen in the past during this event, or at the Bourapuram festival, also inside the reserve that the animals tend to move away to quieter zones of the forest during such periods and then slowly return to their regular territories,” Dr Hiremath said.
The forest department, along with police, has made elaborate arrangements for traffic control, while the district administration which is coordinating all the efforts, has also placed health teams and ambulances on the ready if a need for them arises
