To minimise the man-animal conflict, the department has hastened the fencing between forests and human habitats. Nylon fencing was undertaken on a pilot basis 5-6 years ago, and was later taken up in a full-fledged manner. Nearly 40 km has been fenced and the department has now decided to complete the entire stretch in another two years.
The department is also planning to radio collar a strayed tiger. It has sent a proposal to the Wildlife Institute of India to permanently post a researcher in the Sunderbans, who could immediately place a radio collar on the tranquilized tiger. Last year, 17 tigers had strayed, of which one was tranquilized by the department, two were captured with a bait and then released while the remaining returned to the jungle on their own.
Last December, a tigress had strayed into a Sunderbans village. The forest officials captured it, tranquilized it and placed a radio collar under its neck and released it into the forests.
“Radio collaring will help track the movement of the tiger, its activities and its territory. It will also help us to keep a tab on straying of tigers,” said SS Bist, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife).
The department is finding it difficult to find a radio-collar suitable for the Sunderbans.
“The radio collars which are effective in other zoos may not be in the Sunderbans because the device is easily corroded by the saline water present in forests here,” said Bist.
The Centre has already approved the installation of radio collars in four tigers, of which one has already been undertaken. The mechanism, however, broke down in four months.