Baripada: Tigress Zeenat, who strayed from Odisha’s Simlipal forest to Bankura in West Bengal, was tranquilized on Sunday afternoon in Gopalpur forest in West Bengal after a few attempts to sedated it on early Sunday, Baripada Regional Chief Conservator of Forests (RCCF) Prakash Chand Gogineni said.
The tigress is currently in a cage and efforts are being made to bring back the big cat to Odisha, he added.
Earlier, West Bengal Chief Wildlife Warden, West Bengal, Debal Roy said that the tigress is at the same place as Saturday night in Bankura district’s Gopalpur forest and was encircled with double netting. The perimeter of the netting was shortened with the tigress inside the netted area, he said.
“The tigress was tranquilised at 1.20 am today, but it could not be sedated after repeated doses,” Roy said. He said that since there is an upper limit to the amount of dosage to be applied to the animal in tranquiliser shots, the operation to sedate it was abandoned temporarily at 4.30 am.
“The tigress is in a very excited state and that is why it is not getting sedated,” he said.
Zeenat was brought to Odisha’s Similipal from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Maharashtra last month with the goal of introducing a new gene pool to the tiger population. Zeenat had strayed from Simlipal and travelled about 15 km to seek refuge in a forest in Manbazar block December 27 from Bandwan where she was holed up between December 24 and 26. She has been in West Bengal for nearly a week after crossing over from Jharkhand.
The tigress has covered over 120 km, roaming the forests at the tri-junction of West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Odisha, in search of new territory after leaving Similipal.
