Kolkata: The Buxa tigress was pregnant, the Bengal forest dept learnt on the night of Nov 7, triggering questions over how her condition went undetected despite three rounds of tranquillisation — on Sept 29, Oct 1 and Nov 3 — and whether adequate health checks were carried out before and after her translocation from Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve. The dept has not disclosed how the pregnancy loss came to light.More significantly, sources said the written approval from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for the third tranquillisation had allegedly not reached the field officials in Assam during her capture on the edge of Raimona National Park.Valmiki field director Gaurav Ojha said his team’s responsibility was limited to locating, capturing and handing over the tigress to the Bengal forest department. “Beyond that, our role ends. Pregnancy in a tigress is detectable in the wild only at an advanced stage. I understand the foetuses were around two months old, which would mean they were barely 15-20 days old at the time of capture. Detecting pregnancy at such an early stage in the field would have been extremely difficult,” he said.This comes barely a couple of days after an expert-chaired NTCA meet flagged concerns over ‘hurried’ release of the tigress after it injured herself during the over 17-hour transport from Valmiki to Buxa between Sept 29 and 30.The Bengal forest dept constituted a probe panel on Nov 9, two days after it learnt about the reported miscarriage, to examine the selection of a pregnant tigress for the project and alleged lapses in the construction of the enclosure which the tigress breached “by digging a hole under its foundation”. A central team is also conducting a parallel probe.“A central team is also probing what has actually happened, right from the time of the capture. We released the tigress after getting a ‘fit certificate’. I don’t know about the foetuses, or if at all there was any foetus. We will comment on the matter only after getting the probe report,” said Bengal forest minister Manoj Kumar Oraon.Meanwhile, sources said the tigress remained agitated and aggressive a day after the miscarriage and escaped from the enclosure on the afternoon of Nov 8. The enclosure, it was alleged, has gaps at different points. Originally constructed to house herbivores before their eventual rewilding, the facility was subsequently converted into a tiger acclimatisation enclosure. Modification work began around July.The tigress is within the limits of Buxa forest and reportedly made a wild boar kill on Thursday morning. NTCA member secretary and inspector general are in Buxa to assess the situation, while an assistant inspector general is scheduled to reach on Friday.Retired IFS officer and former Panna Tiger Reserve field director R Sreenivasa Murthy said the project appeared to have been implemented in haste. “There have already been three tranquillisations. Besides, there were reported injuries during her transportation from Valmiki. The release should have been deferred and she should have been kept under observation. The other issue is managerial monitoring. During the Panna reintroduction, the entire monitoring was handled by our forest staff. I don’t know whether Buxa has adequate staff or the required training to handle this. We must take lessons from the failures at Satkosia,” he said.Recalling a similar situation during Panna’s reintroduction, which began in 2009, Murthy said they had avoided tranquillising a tigress to prevent a miscarriage and continued monitoring her instead. She eventually delivered, becoming the world’s first rewilded tigress to achieve breeding success, he said.Conservation biologist Raghunandan Singh Chundawat said the experience of the team involved in the operation needed scrutiny. “It must be established how the tigress was selected and whether the team knew she was pregnant. If they did, why was she tranquillised three times? Escaping from the enclosure is gross negligence,” he said.Former Wildlife Institute of India dean Y V Jhala said detecting early pregnancy in a wild tigress was difficult. “It is not possible to conduct sonography in the wild. However, post-capture monitoring and observation after shift to release site could help,” he said. On enclosure breach, Jhala said the incident indicated that its foundation work had not been carried out properly.Oraon said the tigress was marking its territory in Buxa and that they would decide on bringing more tigers after this tigress settles here.
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