'Rewilding' centre aimed at reducing man-animal conflict to come up in UP's Pilibhit

Bareilly: Plans are afoot to set up a ”rewilding” center this financial year at the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve to alter the man-eating behavior of tigers and leopards so that they do not attack people, officials said on Sunday.

”Wild animals normally maintain critical distance with humans and their habitation. Because of the landscape of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR), they are losing this critical distance with repeated chance encounters. So, we are trying to get these animals to maintain that distance,” PTR Deputy Director Naveen Khandelwal told PTI.

Rewilding is a concept to reverse the behavior of the tigers which normally reside in the close vicinity of human habitation, he elaborated. The aim is to reaccustom them with the wild habitat, Khandelwal said.

He said a rewilding center exists in Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

Asked when the rewilding center in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district would see the light of the day, Khandelwal said, ”We are planning to complete this in this financial year only.” Elaborating more on this, Lalit Verma, Chief Conservator of Forests, Bareilly told PTI, ”Till now, the usual practice has been that tigers and leopards caught in the populated areas were sent to zoological gardens. But, these animals would be sent to rewilding centers”.

”A proposal in this regard has been sent to the state government for its approval and all the formalities have been completed. The land for the rewilding center has also been finalized,” Verma said.

He said tigers and leopards, which move towards populated areas, will be tranquilized and brought to the rewilding center and released there.

At the rewilding center, the tiger will be able to hunt cheetah, nilgai, and wild boars, and ”subsequently forget the taste of human blood”, and stop venturing into human settlements, Verma said.

The behavior and style of working of these predators will be studied at the rewilding center, and treatment will also be given to the injured or those who have fallen ill, the forest official said.

Verma said 31 people in man-animal conflicts from 2014 to 2020 (June 10), while five tigers and three tigresses were caught in the period from 2014 to 2020.

Eighteen tigers were killed in such conflicts from 2012 to 2020, he said, adding the count includes two cubs who were killed in 2017.