Buxa tiger reintroduction efforts have faced another setback after a three-year-old tigress escaped from a 2.2-hectare acclimatisation enclosure in West Bengal on Sunday, barely four days after forest officials brought her back from Assam’s Raimona landscape following a 10-day tracking and capture operation.
The tigress, identified as T-138 and later named BTR-TF1, reportedly dug a hole beneath the enclosure’s foundation and slipped out at around 1.30 pm. The latest breach has raised questions about the security of the facility and the difficulty of confining a wild animal that had already moved across the Bengal-Assam forest corridor.
According to the report, the tigress was moving eastwards towards Assam and had crossed the Bala river by the time of the latest update. If she follows her earlier route, she may have to cross the Jayanti and Raidak rivers before reaching the Sankosh. Beyond the Sankosh, she could move further into Assam or towards Bhutan, the report said.
A former Wildlife Institute of India scientist told Times of India that a big cat could breach an enclosure by digging beneath a fence if its foundation had not been constructed properly. The scientist also said tigers were not naturally strong diggers compared with animals such as members of the dog family or hyenas.
The tigress was brought from Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve and released into the wild at Buxa’s 25th Mile enclosure on October 2 as part of Bengal’s first tiger reintroduction project. She left the enclosure on October 4 and crossed the Sankosh into Assam’s Raimona landscape. Her movements were tracked using a radio collar, although signals went missing for more than 32 hours at one point before resuming.
The forest departments of West Bengal and Assam, supported by researchers and trackers, eventually traced her to several locations in Assam, including areas near human habitation. Concerns about her entering populated areas, particularly ahead of Kali Puja festivities, led the Bengal forest department to seek permission from the National Tiger Conservation Authority for another tranquillisation operation.
After receiving clearance, teams captured the tigress in the Gilaguri area of Dotma, around 30 kilometres from Raimona National Park, on November 3. She was then transported back to Buxa. That operation was the third tranquillisation attempt involving the animal in 34 days.
The tigress had earlier been tranquillised during her capture at Valmiki on September 29 and again on October 1 after her radio collar came off during transportation to Buxa. Her latest escape therefore follows multiple capture, transport and monitoring interventions within a short period.
The new breach also highlights the operational challenges of reintroducing large carnivores into landscapes that extend across state and national boundaries. The immediate next steps will depend on forest teams’ ability to track the tigress, assess her direction of movement and determine whether another capture operation is required.
