THE GOAN NETWORK | PANAJI
The recent records of the breeding of five tigresses in the protected areas of Mhadei and Mollem sparked hope at a time when the green crusaders are battling out against the State government’s reluctance to declare these corridors as Tiger Reserve.
According to the latest State Tiger Report 2022, the tiger population in Goa has consistently remained low since 2014 with five tigers and further declining to three in 2018.
The Mhadei and Mollem are contiguous to the Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary and Anshi-Dandeli Tiger Reserve. The contiguous forests of Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra and the reserve forests and wildlife sanctuary of Radhanagari in Karnataka, Chandoli National Park and the reserve forests of Purna and Dodamarg in Maharashtra have been named Tiger Conservation Units (TCU). And hence, the State government often claims that the tigers spotted in Goa are transited.
Records refute govt's claims
Though the State government has been in denial mode that the tigers are the habitants of Goa, the record shows that they have been residents of the State's wild since 2002. The animal census conducted by the State Forest Department in 2002 authenticated the presence of tigers in the Mhadei area.
The census in 2006 and 2010, too, recorded pug marks and scat of different wild cats thus confirming that there were a total of five tigers including a cub.
Since then, tigers have been roaring along that corridor. In an unfortunate incident that came as a shocker to environmental enthusiasts in February 2009, the first tiger killing case was reported in Keri village of Sattari taluka.
With the modern technology of the camera tap method being introduced to authenticate the presence of tigers in the State's wild, in 2013, a tigress was spotted in areas of Mhadei WLS followed by a tiger couple in 2014. In 2017, five tigers -- one male, two females and two cubs were spotted in the protected corridor.
In what happened to be a case of poisoning, in 2020, four members of a tiger family, including curbs, were killed by a local in Guleli village in Sattari out of revenge.
Environmentalist Rajendra Kerkar said that tigers have been a habitat of Mhadei and its surrounding corridors for more than two decades now.
“I still remember, I used to hear tigers roaring during the wee hours. I even took my daughter, when she was a kid, for tiger sighting in the forest and even today we have cases of a tiger killing a cow or buffalo,” he said.
The times when Centre knocked on Goa doors
The first big push from the Centre was in 2011, when, much to the contrary, the then union minister for forest and environment Jairam Ramesh, wrote to the then Digamber Kamat-led government suggesting submitting a proposal to declare the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS) as a “tiger reserve” since “there are evidences to show that tigers in Goa are not merely transient animals but a resident population as well”.
In 2014, during Manohar Parrikar's regime, ex-union minister Jayanti Natarajan sought Goa’s response to a tiger reserve.
In 2016, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) recommended that a tiger reserve be carved out from uninhabited core areas of Goa’s protected wild fearing “extinction of the species”.
In the very same year, the Union Ministry said that Goa “it would be in the fitness of things” to notify the Cotigao Mhadei corridor as a tiger reserve.
In 2020, following the death of four members of the tiger family, the Centre-appointed probe team even recommended that the State should take immediate steps for enhancing the legal status of Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary to that of a tiger reserve.
Boundaries yet to be demarcated
A forest official confirmed that pending settlement of rights under the Wildlife Protection Act, the boundaries of these protected areas right from Mhadei to Cotigao, are yet to be demarcated. “Final notification under Section 26-A of the Act is yet to be issued in certain areas within the Mhadei sanctuary. We had brought this to the notice of the Court. Without final notification, declaring these areas as a tiger reserve could prematurely lead to adverse impact on the population residing within and exacerbate human-tiger conflicts,” the official said.
