BHUBANESHWAR: With tigress Zeenat moving another 5km towards Odisha on Saturday, forest department officers tracking the big cat’s movement in Rajabasa under Chakulia forest division in Jharkhand are hopeful of its return to Odisha.
According to the officers, the tigress is 15km away from the Odisha border. “It will be a significant indicator of its return to Odisha once it crosses the Subarnarekha river,” Prakash Gogineni, field director of Similipal Tiger Reserve, said.
The three-year-old tigress has been giving sleepless nights to over two dozen forest officers of both the states ever since it entered Jharkhand from Odisha. As the tigress moved along, forest officers of West Bengal were also put on alert,. A 15-member team from Odisha’s wildlife division is tracking its movement ever since.
Tigress Zeenat, originally from Maharashtra’s Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, was relocated to Odisha’s Similipal last month. It astonished experts by embarking on an extraordinary journey spanning over 100km into Jharkhand close to the West Bengal border.
The tigress’s movements even forced authorities to impose Section 163 of the BNSS in four villages in Jharkhand, effectively placing thousands under house arrest for five days. Released into the wild after a brief period, she defied all odds by leaping hills, crossing rivers, and traversing forests at a pace of 12km a day.
On Dec 8, the big cat madeleft the sanctuary’s core area and crossed into Jharkhand . “She’s a pioneer, charting her own path through the wilderness. Her movements indicate strong survival instincts. This is unprecedented. With its current movement, we hope she will cross into Odisha again,” Gogineni said.