A glorious chapter in one of India’s most successful tiger reintroduction programmes ended on Tuesday after ‘T-1’ of Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh was found dead.
Born in MP’s Bandhavgarh National Park, T-1 was brought to Panna in 2009 as part of an ambitious reintroduction programme after the reserve was left with no tigers.
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T-1 died of natural causes
“A patrolling team spotted the carcass of a big cat on Tuesday evening in the Madla range. An inactive radio collar, which was worn by T-1 in 2017, was found near the carcass,” PTR’s field director Brijendra Jha said, adding a team of forest officials reached the spot and inspected the area.
T-1 died naturally as nothing suspicious suggesting anything otherwise was found in the area, he said.
A Tribute to Grand Matriarch T1 #panna
Tigress T1 breathed her last today. Along with other pioneering tigers that were introduced to Panna and their offspring, T1 leaves behind a legacy that has invigorated the entire landscape. pic.twitter.com/lmpi5XrsAd— Sumesh Lekhi (@sumeshlekhi) February 1, 2023
After the postmortem, the carcass was disposed of on Wednesday morning as per the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) guidelines. The viscera was sent to laboratories at Sagar and Jabalpur for examination, the forest officer said.
PANNA TIGER RESERVE
T-1 outlived average tiger life expectancy
According to Jha, the T-1 was roaming in the PTR buffer zone. She was surviving on hunting done by other tigers for some time as she had lost the strength to kill prey due to her age.
The average age of a tiger is around 14 years, but T-1 lived beyond that, he said.
How T-1 was brought to Panna
In 2006 the Panna reserve, which is spread across 542.7 km, had around 20 tigers, but by 2009 there were none left, forcing authorities to reintroduce big cats from elsewhere.
In March 2009, T-I from Bandhavgarh, along with another tigress, T-2, from Kanha National Park and a male tiger T-3, from Pench Tiger Reserve, were shifted to Panna.
PTR
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From zero to over 80 tigers in 14 years
The move turned out to be a remarkable success story; today, fourteen years later, the tiger population, including cubs in PTR, is around 84-86.
Out of this, 13 are the cubs of T-1, including four in her last litter in 2016.
The first tiger cubs born in Panna were also T-1’s in April 2010, when she gave birth to four. T-2 also gave birth to four more cubs in October 2010.
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“The tigress had given birth to 13 cubs in five litters. T-1, who lived in PTR for 14 years, made a very remarkable contribution to the success of Panna’s Tiger Reintroduction Project,” Jha said.
Tiger population in Madhya Pradesh
According to the All-India Tiger Estimation Report 2018, Madhya Pradesh was home to 526 tigers, the highest for any state in the country.
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The next All India Tiger Estimation Report is due this year, as Census work in the country was completed last year.
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