Another tigerless Tiger Reserve

The Sanjay tiger reserve spread over 800 sq km in Madhya Pradesh’s Sidhi district has become devoid of tiger. “No tiger was officially sighted between October 2008 and May 2009 in the Sanjay tiger reserve,” director of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve C K Patil, who was the director of the reserve during the period, said. Earlier, the Panna tiger reserve, also in MP, was de clared tigerless. The government which last week gave a written reply to a question relating to the dwindling number of tigers in the assembly had neither mentioned the name of the Sanjay reserve in the House nor in its report of the Census carried out in 2006. According to a 2004 official census, the reserve had six big cats. The reserve in undivided MP had the highest tiger population at 36 in 1992, according to the state forest department. After MP was bifurcated in 2000, a large part of the then Sanjay national park went to Chhatisgarh. Chhatisgarh renamed the area as Guru Ghasidas national park.