Odisha to return big cat to MP after NTCA suspends tiger translocation prog

With the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) suspending tiger translocation programme in Odisha's Satkosia Tiger Reserve, the state government will return a female big cat to Madhya Pradesh from where she was brought in June last year, officials said. The tigress was kept in a restricted open enclosure after she had allegedly killed two persons in the tiger reserve in Angul district.

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The NTCA had objected to it, saying that the tigress cannot be allowed to be kept in a small enclosure. In a letter to the chief secretary of Odisha, the NTCA had said, in the interest of tiger conservation, the tigress shall be withdrawn and brought to Ghorela Centre at Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh with immediate effect for re- wilding and subsequent release to a suitable habitat.

"We have written to the Madhya Pradesh government to take back the tigress in view of the NTCA's directive," Odisha Chief Wildlife Warden Hari Shankar Upadhay told reporters on Thursday. Upadhay said the MP government will make arrangements to shift the tigress.

Another male tiger was allegedly poached inside the Satkosia Tiger Reserve. The NTCA had informed the Odisha government that the tiger translocation programme at Satkosia Tiger Reserve will remain suspended till the ground situation improves.

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