West Bengal to hand over Tigress Zeenat to Odisha tonight: Forest official | Kolkata

Tigress Zeenat, who was captured from Bankura in West Bengal after she wandered out of the Simlipal Tiger Reserve, will be handed over to the Odisha Forest department by Tuesday night, said Debal Roy, chief wildlife warden of West Bengal.

“The documents were being readied. We have received the fitness certificate. She would be handed over to officials of Simlipal Tiger Reserve by Tuesday night. She is absolutely fine,” said Roy.

This comes a day after the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) sent a letter to the forest department of West Bengal seeking an answer on why the tigress was sent to the Alipore Zoo in Kolkata after being sedated and captured in Bankura.

The country’s apex body tasked with tiger conservation in India had also asked the forest department to immediately shift the tigress (T163-S1) to Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha from where the big cat had strayed out.

The three-year-old tigress, which was translocated from Maharashtra to the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) in Odisha in November this year to improve the reserve’s genetic diversity, had moved out of Odisha and entered Jharkhand on December 9. She later entered West Bengal on December 20.

In West Bengal she moved from Jhargram to Purulia and then to Bankura district. She was finally tranquillised and captured on Sunday. She was then brought to the Alipore Zoo in Kolkata in a convoy through a green corridor.

At the Alipore Zoo, a medical team was set up to check her. She was declared fit following which the statutory body gave the clearance to shift her to Simlipal.