KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, April 7: Dalma Hills, close to Jamshedpur is becoming increasingly a place of incredible attraction for both the forest department as well as the people around as a tiger seems to have made it its habitat.
The wild tiger has been at the hill for the past three months and has been living there even making a sojourn to the Jhilmil forest range in the neighbouring West Bengal once during this period.
Whereas the advent of the tiger in Dalma Hills has turned the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary euphoric given the presence of a big cat a sign of healthy forestry in the sprawling hill, the phenomenal development has put the forest department on a high alert situation.
Forest Department Implements NTCA Guidelines
After the forest department became almost sure that it was not just a stopover arrangement in Dalma for the tiger, the forest department authority was concerned to start following strategic steps in accordance with the guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
After going through the movements of the tiger for over a month, the NTCA in cooperation with the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary officials has installed as many as 45 CCTV cameras in and around the territory inside the sanctuary where the tiger keeps moving.
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This apart, a 14-member special team has been set up to keep a round-the-clock watch on the movement of the big cat. Significantly, the special team includes two wildlife experts from the Dehradun Wildlife Institute.
As a tiger tends to live on a level area and not on the slopes of any hill, the surveillance cameras have been installed accordingly.
Daily Monitoring and Expert Analysis to Track the Tiger
A senior official of the sanctuary revealed that every morning at 5 o’clock a section of the officials from the special team take footage of each camera so as to determine the movement of the tiger.
The two wildlife experts who have expertise in pugmark reading also do their duty to know which direction the tiger is now in.
“One the main purposes behind maintaining vigilance over this big cat is to save it from the poachers who might have been active in the region after the news of the tiger’s presence in Dalma came into the limelight recently. The forest department authority concerned have decided to install more CCTV cameras and increase the vigilance further,” said the official requesting anonymity while talking to The Jharkhand Story.
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Discovery of Tiger Presence after Livestock Loss
The official stated that the knowledge about a tiger’s presence in Dalma first came to the forest department’s notice three months ago when a cow went missing from Tulip village while it was grazing along with other bovines.
“Next morning, the owner of the cow, Budheshwar Majhi had found the partly-wolved carcass of the missing cow at a little distance away from the Tulip village. The next morning, the remaining part of the carcass was found missing. Then only, the villager informed the forest department about a probable tiger or some other wild animal on the hill,” said the official.
The official said after a thorough investigation, the forest department had paid the villager Rs 25,000 as compensation on the approval of Circle Officer, Chandil. He said that a fortnight later a bull disappeared from one of the villages in the hill, adding that after the disappearance of the bull suddenly the department swung into action to finally confirm the presence of the tiger there.
