Cutting a sorry figure of tiger conservation in the country, Union Minister for Environment and Forest (MoEF) Jairam Ramesh on Friday stated that as many as 18 tiger reserves in the country were prone to Panna or Sariska like situation, if the big cats were not protected in a proper way.
Panna: Wildlife in Panna Tiger Reserve is falling victim to not just poachers but also speeding vehicles.
''Between January 9 and March 10, vehicles knocked down two nilgai, four sambar, a boar, two hyenas, six jackals, a rabbit, a fox, two langoors and a chital with the maximum fatalities in Mandla area,'' Reserve Director R Sriniwas Murthy told reporters.
The Madhya Pradesh forest minister Sartaj Singh was off the mark when he said in a written reply to a question in the state Assembly on Monday that a tiger recently relocated from the Pench Tiger Reserve to Panna Tiger Reserve had been radio-collared and was being monitored constantly even when it had strayed outside the Park territory.
Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh Forest Department has sought a CBI probe into the disappearance of tiger population from the Panna Tiger Reserve situated in eastern part of the State.
Six rare types of vultures, including the Cinereous Vulture and Himalayan Griffon Vulture, as well as the Black-Capped Kingfisher have been sighted in the ''tiger-less'' Panna Tiger Reserve during a wildlife census.
The much-awaited census of wild animals across Madhya Pradesh would begin on Wednesday. It would be the first census of wild animals after the official declaration that the tiger community had been wiped out from Panna.
The ambitious tiger revival plan at Panna National Park might be moving ahead amid hiccups since its inception early last year, but wildlife experts like World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-India secretary general Ravi Singh, are very much upbeat about the project.
Strong demands for effective efforts in the field of tiger conservation were raised from all around amid the intermittent big cat mortalities in Madhya Pradesh throughout the year.
