Male Royal Bengal Tiger spotted in Debrigarh wildlife sanctuary
Forest officials have intensified surveillance after a male tiger entered the protected area through the Dechuan-Lakhanpur forest route on Monday.
A male Royal Bengal Tiger entered the Debrigarh wildlife sanctuary on Monday, according to The Times of India. The animal was spotted by forest personnel and captured on a camera trap, marking the second such movement into the sanctuary in the last five years.
The tiger entered the protected area through the Dechuan-Lakhanpur forest route under the Ambabhona block in Bargarh district. While forest officials believe the big cat may have travelled from Madhya Pradesh through Chhattisgarh, its exact age, sex, and source population are yet to be determined.
Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of the Hirakud wildlife division, Anshu Pragyan Das, said a robust monitoring mechanism has been activated. He stated that 100 camera traps have been deployed and 27 teams are conducting daily patrols along the sanctuary border trails. Additionally, a three-layer night patrolling system is in place.
Photographs from the camera traps have been sent to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for analysis. DFO Das said the tiger's origin and other details can only be confirmed after this analysis.
Debrigarh does not have a resident tiger population, though it has seen visiting tigers previously. A tiger stayed in the sanctuary between 2022 and 2024 for approximately one-and-a-half years before dying of electrocution in the neighbouring Gomarda wildlife sanctuary.
The sighting follows recent tiger activity in Odisha, including a tiger spotted near the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) township in Koraput district on Saturday. Meanwhile, a radio-collared male tiger from Andhra Pradesh's Papikonda National Park has crossed back into Andhra Pradesh from Malkangiri district.