Bihar to get its second tiger reserve in Kaimur soon

The much-awaited second tiger reserve of Bihar is all set to come up either by the end of 2023 or early 2024, according to the officials of the Bihar Forest, Environment and Climate Change Department.

The officials have been working towards obtaining the National Tiger Reserve Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) approval for declaring Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary as the state’s second tiger reserve after the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR).

Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wild Life) Prabhat Kumar Gupta confirmed that another tiger reserve would come up in Kaimur. “We are working towards it. There would be a tiger reserve and there is no doubt about it,” he told this reporter.

Gupta said that after NTCA in principle approved our proposal for a tiger reserve in Kaimur in July this year, the department started preparing a final proposal to be sent to NTCA next month for formal approval.

The declaration of the new tiger reserve in the country will follow the approval.

“The final proposal is in the making. We are hopeful to provide a satisfactory proposal for approval,” Gupta said.

Shergarh Fort, a major tourist attraction, as well as 58 villages, will be in a buffer zone of 1,050 square kilometres. These regions have been excluded from the core zone of the proposed tiger reserve, said another senior forest officer.

NTCA had raised objections to the department’s earlier proposal. “The exclusion of certain areas from the core zone was made due to NTCA objections. The department has identified 450 square kilometres of forest as tiger habitats. Earlier, habitats spanning 900 sq km were identified,” the official said.

According to forest officers, the need for a second reserve arose as the VTR reached its saturation point. Bihar’s sole tiger reserve in West Champaran district, close to the border of Nepal, currently has the capacity to manage nearly 50 tigers.

According to the latest Status of Tigers Report prepared by NTCA and Wild Life Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, this year, there are 54 tigers in the VTR, signalling a significant leap in the population. Through 2018, the number of tigers in VTR was recorded at 31.

The first proposal to develop Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary into a tiger reserve was put forward in 2018 by the then Kaimur District Forest Officer Satyajeet Kumar.

He had sent a recommendation to the forest department after sighting two tigers, their pugmarks and the carcasses of deer and other prey animals killed by tigers in 2017. In his report to the department, Kumar confirmed the presence of tigers in the Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary.

The forest department sent a team of experts to Kaimur five years ago to know the ground reality and suitability for a tiger reserve. “The team including the former Director of WII, AJT Johnsingh, gave the go-ahead to the forest department to declare the area as a tiger reserve in its report,” another forest official said.

Tigers were spotted in Kaimur till 1995.

According to the Bihar Forest Department’s official website, the forests of Kaimur span 1,134 sq km area, including the 986 sq km of the Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Kaimur district has the highest green cover in Bihar: 34 per cent. Besides, the Kaimur forests are the biggest in the state in terms of area. The Kaimur forests are connected to forests in the neighbouring states of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

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