Buxa's relocated tigress crosses into Assam; West Bengal plans to bring her back

The West Bengal government is preparing to bring back a tigress that was released into the Buxa Tiger Reserve earlier this month and has since crossed into neighbouring Assam, forest officials said.

The three-year-old tigress, identified as BTR-TF-1 (T-138), was released in Buxa on October 2 after being translocated from Bihar's Valmiki Tiger Reserve. The move marked the first phase of West Bengal's tiger relocation project.

According to officials, the tigress crossed the Sankosh River and a road in Gosaigaon in Assam on Sunday, October 25, and entered the Raimona reserve forest. Her movement area has so far been traced about 25 km from the West Bengal border.

Forest Minister Manoj Oraon said he and senior officers of the department will visit Assam on Saturday, October 31, to inspect the tigress's movement and health. "Our team has already been coordinating with Assam's Forest Department to monitor the tigress. However, I am personally visiting Raimona tomorrow and will finalise the necessary plan to tranquilise and bring her back to Buxa," he said.

Officials said the animal appears to have moved in search of a suitable habitat. Forest teams from Assam and West Bengal, along with a team from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), had initially decided to let her explore the surroundings and settle in a habitat of her choice. That approach has now changed, with efforts under way to return her to West Bengal's territory.

Mr. Oraon said the tigress is healthy and has been hunting animals. Her condition has been tracked through the monitoring arrangements put in place at the time of her release.

At the release event on October 2, which was attended by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, the State announced that three more tigers would be released in Buxa over the next two months. The Chief Minister said the initiative would help both wildlife conservation and tourism in the region.

Buxa was declared a tiger reserve in 1983. In recent years, however, there have been no reports of tiger presence in the reserve, which is why the State has pursued a structured recovery programme.

According to a Press Information Bureau statement, the recovery of Buxa has been a sustained, science-based effort. The Tiger Augmentation and Recovery Project, initiated by the Government of West Bengal with support from the NTCA and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), has been implemented collaboratively since 2018.

Forest officials said the tigress will be subjected to intensive post-release monitoring using a combination of telemetry, camera trapping and field-based monitoring to assess her movement, adaptation, health and behaviour.

Relocation of large carnivores is a complex exercise. When a translocated animal moves out of the release site, the standard practice is to monitor it closely, allow it time to settle where conditions are favourable, and intervene only if it strays into areas where it could come into conflict with people or if its health is at risk. The decision to bring the Buxa tigress back is being taken with those considerations in view, officials said.

State forest departments in India frequently coordinate on such trans-boundary movements of wildlife, particularly along inter-State forest corridors. The tigress's journey across the Sankosh, which forms part of the boundary between West Bengal and Assam, is an example of how wildlife ranges extend beyond administrative borders.