In the wee hours of Sunday morning, Sariska’s first male Royal Bengal tiger in three years walked the reserve, free. Relocated from Ranthambore, he had been kept under observation in an enclosure since last Saturday. As he stepped into the wild where he is expected to form his own territory, one of the first things he did was to feast on the live bait that was tied up and waiting for him. Now, conservators—and casual wildlife enthusiasts—will wait in suspense to see if he mates with the tigress, another Ranthambore import, who will join him this winter once she is released from her enclosure in the reserve.
But exciting and groundbreaking as this ‘experiment’ is said to be, it is not the first of its kind to unfold in Rajasthan, despite the Forest Department’s repeated assertions that this is the “world’s and India’s first such attempt”. The Royal Bengal tiger has been translocated in this western state before in an exercise remarkably similar to the one we see play out before us now.
In 1928, the Maharaja of Dungarpur, Maharawal Laxman Singh, faced the same predicament that inspired wildlife specialists to bring in the Royal Bengals from Ranthambore — the tiger population in his area had been hunted out of existence. With remarkable foresight, the Maharaja translocated two tigresses and one tiger from Gwalior to his kingdom, in a venture that yielded extremely successful results.
Says Dr M K Ranjitsinh, member secretary of the task force that initiated Project Tiger, one of the co-drafters of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, and nephew of Laxman Singh, “Laxman Singh engaged the services of a trapper in 1928 to recreate the tiger population in his kingdom. A tiger and two tigresses were caught and transported from Gwalior. By 1935, the population grew to 20 tigers by, which was the carrying capacity of the forests.”
