Stripes camera-trapped in Neora Valley again

Pinak Priya Bhattacharya | TNN | Updated: Jan 6, 2018,: Three tiger images clicked by camera traps in north Bengal's Neora Valley National Park in the last week of December have given the foresters a reason to cheer.

The pictures were taken in three different areas of the forest. Divisional forest officer Nisha Goswami said: "Due to the Gorkhaland agitation, we couldn't do proper maintenance of the camera traps. After the situation normalised, we provided the ground staff with batteries and reinstalled the camera traps in December. The images were clicked in three different locations and at three different times of day. So, we can't say whether they are different individuals or the same tiger."

A forester said that the traps were taken out of the forest only a day before. Last January, driver Anmol Chhetri alias Harka Bahadur Chhetri, some 3.5km from Lava on way to Pedong, had clicked the image of a tiger in the park - the first such image from N Bengal in more than three decades.

Four days later, a tiger image was clicked inside the national park on January 23. On February 15, a trap camera again took a snap of an adult tiger in the forest. In all the occasions, the images were clicked in different locations.