Panna’s second tigress airlifted from Kanha park

A week after a tigress was shifted from Bandhavgarh National Park for a lonely tiger at the Panna Tiger Reserve, a second tigress was airlifted from Kanha National Park on Monday and released in the forest amid protests. Initially forest authorities had planned to airlift the four-year-old tigress in an IAF helicopter on Sunday but they could not as the tigress was not located in Kanha. On Monday morning, they spotted the feline and tranquillised it. It was then shifted to Panna. Panna National Park had more than 40 tigers about six years ago. But it has gone the Sariska way. Even its lone tiger has not been spotted for over 50 days now. Forest officials said the tiger could have wandered into neighbouring forests in Chhatarpur. Confirming the arrival of the tigress, deputy field director of Panna park, Vikram Singh Parihar, said that the tigress is healthy and has been released in the wild. He said the helicopter carrying the tigress took off at 11.20 am from Kisli in Mandla district and landed at 12.35 pm on a specially constructed helipad at Bargadi in Panna. On Sunday, some political leaders opposed the shifting of the tigress to Panna on grounds that it was pregnant. They claimed Panna was reeling under water scarcity and this would endanger the animal’s life. Denying this, field director of Kanha Tiger Reserve R P Singh said the tigress was not pregnant. The feline was healthy, he said, and there was no harm in airlifting it from the reserve. Panna authorities also denied that there was water scarcity in the park and said both tigresses were safe.