Skill development for three abandoned tiger cubs, to be moved to Srisailam Tiger Reserve to learn hunting

The three surviving female tiger cubs of the four abandoned by their mother will be moved to the Nallamala-Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve forests — the largest one in India — which is located in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

This decision was taken by the Forest department officials to help these cubs grow up as adults. Eight months ago, this group of four female tiger cubs, all aged about 3 months, were abandoned by their mother in the Atmakur forest area. Following their spotting by the villagers, they were rescued by the forest officials and they were later shifted to the Sri Venkateswara Zoological park in Tirupati for better nourishment.

Of the four one passed away due to ill health and the other three were named by SV Zoo authorities as Rudramma, Harini and Anantha. They were being fed like infants but now the conservation experts and forest authorities have taken a decision to send them back to their natural habitat to enable them to grow up as adult tigresses.

To give effect to this plan, the Andhra forest officials along with a team surveyed different spots in the Nallamala-NSTR area and located a suitable place near the China Manthanala forest.

As per the officials, special tiger cub enclosures will be made here and in these the cubs will learn methods to hunt in the wild. They will be released only after each one of them completes a minimum of 50 wild hunts. This is necessary as the cubs hadn’t learnt any basic hunting skills during their captivity. And for them to learn these skills they had to be shifted to the forest.