Camera trap captures tiger at Sahyadri reserve

At a time when tigers are rapidly disappearing from the Indian subcontinent, there is much excitement at the newly-created Sahyadri Tiger Reserve where the first-ever evidence of a tiger has been captured in a “camera trap”.

This photographic evidence has come from a camera trap in a forest adjoining the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve which was created in January 2010.

The fourth tiger reserve in Maharashtra, the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve encompasses the Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary and Chandoli National Park and is spread over the districts of Ratnagri, Sangli, Satara and Kolhapur. A 55 km forest corridor separates the Radhanagari Wildlife Sanctuary in Kolhapur from the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve.

According to the chief conservator of forest (wildlife) MK Rao, the department has installed two camera traps in the forest adjoining the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve where the photo of the tiger has been captured.  Operational trials of these two cameras were on and additional 40 camera traps will be installed in different areas of Sahyadri Tiger Reserve.

Rao said the sighting of the tiger and other wild animals is very difficult in this reserve considering that the forest is extremely dense. “One cannot see beyond 10 meters in these forests,” he said.

Last year, the wildlife census based on pugmarks showed nine tigers in the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve and Radhanagari Wildlife Sanctuary.

Rao spoke on Friday while inaugurating a wildlife photographs exhibition arranged in Kolhapur by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and the forest department (wildlife). The state wildlife advisory board’s member Gopal Bodhe and the BNHS’s tiger cell education officer Sanjay Karkare were amongst those who attended the inaugural session.

The exhibition includes photographs from the tiger reserves at Pench, Tadoba-Andhari and Melghat.