Thread by @KritikaRanjan6

Sixth post of the #WildlifeWeek Reintroduction series.

Day 6 - Panna Roars Again !!

#Panna National Park covering an area of 543 sq km is a splendid mosaic of plateaus, plunging gorges, vast expanses of teak #forests and #Savannah #grasslands teeming with #wildlife...
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.... and its lifeline Ken river running through the middle. It was upgraded to the status of a tiger reserve in 1994 but within 15 years it lost all its stripes !! The news broke out in May, 2009 that Panna TR which once claimed to harbour 40+ tigers had none left anymore.
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It shook the forest department, the govt and every concerned citizen of the country to its core. Investigations were done on the disappearance of tigers and reports submitted by the WII, SIT setup by the NTCA and by an expert committee initiated by govt of MP.
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Major reasons identified were organized #poachers operating in the park at night and ritual #hunting by the ‘Pardhi’ tribe living within the park.
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A program was devised to #repopulate the park with the tigers. Initially two tigresses were relocated from #Bandhavgarh and #Kanha National Park, T1 & T2, and one male tiger T3 from #Pench Tiger Reserve.
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The #foresters monitored the reintroduced tigers by radio collaring, tracking their movements 24X7 through a field monitoring unit of three people and a vehicle.
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In one of the rare instances in zoological #history the male tiger T3 strayed off the grid within ten days, displaying signs of ‘homing instincts’ towards its original home Pench TR. It took an army of around 70 forest staff and four elephants to track him down.
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The forest department increased the protection measures around the park. More than 15 #security posts and #river patrolling unit were established along the Ken river which was identified as a porous entry point for poachers in garb of #fishermen.
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Last Wilderness Foundation multiple trainings for the Pardhi tribe alongwith generating employment opportunities as forest guides and drivers. This changed the attitude of Pardhis from hunters to protecters. Today ‘Walk with The Pardhis’ is a popular tourist attraction.
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To gather support of locals the ‘Friends of Panna’ initiative was started, foresters met and shared information with every local on the revival plan and their role in it. Children were taken to #nature camps inside the park, in collaboration with the WWF.
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24/7 Tiger Squad was started to cater to emergency situations of tigers straying in human habitations. For incidents of cattle killing, #compensation was provided in just 7 to 15 days.
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All these efforts bore fruit. Finally, T1 delivered the first #litter of #cubs in April 2010, followed by T2 in October of 2010. By the end of 2010, there were eight new tiger cubs in Panna along with T1, T2 and T3.
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The park officials further made history by reintroducing hand reared tigers T4 and T5 who bore cubs too. Today Panna houses 54 Tigers and its tigers have dispersed outside capturing new territories between Vindhyas ...
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... and #Chitrakoot with overall tiger numbers crossing 70 in the entire landscape.
Panna was also designated as a #Biosphere Reserve in 2020 by #UNESCO. The ‘Panna’ model of tiger recovery and its monitoring protocols now forms the #NTCA Tiger Reintroduction SOP.
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@moefcc @PannaTigerResrv @minforestmp @mptfs @MPTourism @Kishor_Rithe @rameshpandeyifs @ParveenKaswan @Dr_RajeshGopal @WWFINDIA @WWF_tigers @surenmehra @pargaien @skumarias02 @ranjeetnature @debadityo @Unitedfortigers @yamunajiye #WildlifeWeek2022 #WildlifeWeek @LastWilderness