Once Home To Tigers, Jharkhand's Palamu Tiger Reserve Now Has Over 150 Leopards

Leopards now are ruling a tiger reserve, which is famous for taking the first censor before independence - 1932.

It sounds strange but it's for real that a reserve that once took pride in its tiger populace is now a safe haven for 150 or so leopards. Tourists these days flock to Palamu Tiger Reserve to spot leopards, as per PTI. Officials say there has been no tiger sighting since a tigress was found dead in February 2020 near Betla National Park.

"We now have about 150 leopard population, which has become an attraction for tourists coming to Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR)...Happy tourists are often seen taking photographs with the leopards' leap...However, we are making all efforts to facilitate the return of the tigers," Chief Conservator of Forest (CCF) and Project Director, PTR YK Das told PTI.

Attributing "left-wing extremism activities, movement of security personnel, increased human encroachment and depleting prey bases in core and buffer zones of the reserve spread across about 1130 square km" as the main reasons behind the big cats abandoning the once safe haven and migrating to neighbouring Chhattisgarh, Odisha etc, Das said restoration of prey base among other measures were on to lure them back, Das said.

He said that though no tigers were detected in the last All India Tiger Estimation, one tigress was found dead in PTR in February 2020 which establishes that the tiger was there.

"We are working on a relocation project to preserve PTR's ecology and improve its prey base to facilitate the return of tigers. Initially, we will be relocating inhabitants of two villages - Latu and Kujrum to outside PTR...The relocation project involves a 300 square km area, which is human-infested. We will be relocating 22 families of these two villages, who have agreed to it," Das said.

PTI

The plan is to provide a family unit of either Rs 15 lakh for relocation of Rs 10 lakh and 5 acres of land to areas with community living including roads and other facilities, he said. The project is being implemented at a cost of Rs 26 crore, he said.

A total of eight villages - Kujrum, Latu, Ramandag, Hainar, Gutucha, Vijaypur, Gopkhad and Pandra have been identified for relocation to places outside the tiger reserve with Latu and Kurjum falling under phase one.

Of the 1129.93 sq km area of PTR, 414.08 sq km is marked as core area (critical tiger habitat) and the rest 715.85 sq km as buffer area. Of the total area, 226.32 sq.km is designated as Betla national park. In the buffer zone, 53 sq km is marked as a tourist zone.

Palamu was declared a protected forest reserve in 1973-74 when Project Tiger was launched.

The reserve, according to information, recorded its highest tiger population in 1995 with 71 big cats but since then their population has been dwindling with only three recorded in 2014 and as per the recent 2019 estimation there was no tiger in it.

PTI

Three tiger reserves in the country - Mizoram, West Bengal and Jharkhand showed zero population in the latest report.

The Palamau Tiger Reserve, located at a distance of about 170 km from state capital Ranchi via Latehar, consists mainly of Sal forests, mixed deciduous forests and bamboo groves. The reserve zone is the watershed area for three important rivers Koel, Burha and Auranga.

The Palamau Tiger Reserve was one of the first 9 tiger reserves created in the country at inception of Project Tiger and has the distinction of being the first sanctuary in the world in which a tiger census was carried out as a pugmark count, as early as 1932 under the supervision of JW Nicholson, the then DFO, Palamau.

Apart from leopards, it houses elephants, grey wolf, gaur, sloth bear, four- horned antelope, Indian ratel, Indian otter and Indian pangolin to name a few.

There are 11 Schedule- I species distributed in PTR among mammals only. In total, 47 species of mammals and 174 species of birds have been identified, as per officials who said that apart from these, a total of 970 species of plants, 17 species of grass and 56 species of medicinal plants have also been identified.