Centre acknowledges presence of Royal Bengal Tiger in Buxa & Neora Valley

SOUMITRA NANDI | MP | 29 July 2023 : The Centre has finally acknowledged the presence of the Royal Bengal Tiger in the forests of North Bengal with the latest tiger status report released on Saturday (on the occasion of International Tiger Day) revealing the existence of two big cats — one at Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) and the other at Neora Valley National Park. 

The count of tigers under the Sunderban landscape has also crossed 100, 101 to be precise. The last census in 2018 had the presence of 88 big cats in the Sunderbans. “We have been demanding for the last few years that there is the presence of the Royal Bengal Tiger in Buxa, Mahananda as well as Neora Valley. 

There has been more than one instance when my officers have shown me pictures of big cats in North Bengal forests. 

We have also captured baby tigers in North Bengal through drone surveillance making us sanguine of the big cats’ presence. Royal Bengal Tiger is our pride and it is of immense pleasure that the Centre has finally acknowledged that we were not making any false claims,” state Forest minister Jyotipriya Mallick said. 

The latest tiger status report was released by Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ashwini Kumar Choubey at Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand. State Chief Wildlife Warden Debal Roy, Field Director Sunderban Tiger Reserve Ajay Das and Apurba Sen, Field Director of the BTR were present, representing the state. 

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had conducted the All India Tiger Census during 2021-22 that included the Sunderbans as well as North Bengal. BTR in Alipurduar district is a biodiversity hotspot under the Eastern Himalayas and is home to almost all the species belonging to the cat family, including leopards. 

There are also common clouded leopards, jungle cats and fishing cats. The herbivore list includes elephants, Indian gaur, chital, sambars, barking deer and hog deer. Interestingly, the detailed 2018 report released by the centre in July 2020 on “Status of Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India” had zero tiger count in BTR as no camera trap could capture big cats. 

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/centre-acknowledges-presence-of-royal-bengal-tiger-in-buxa-neora-valley-527419