Tezpur: In what might cheer the wildlife enthusiasts, the Assam forest department has received photographic evidence of the presence of the Royal Bengal Tiger in the Sonai-Rupai wildlife sanctuary in Assam's Sonitpur district. According to the forest department officials, this is the first photographic evidence of the presence of Tigers in the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary has a contiguous landscape with the Nameri Tiger Reserve and the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary forms the core of the tiger reserve. Divisional Forest Officer of the Western Assam Wildlife Division Piraisoodan B (IFS) said this while adding that citing a tiger for the first time in Sonai Rupai is good news for the wildlife sanctuary.
He said that the forest department used camera traps to assess the usage of 12 water bodies renovated recently by the forest department. "While the camera trap recorded usage of water bodies by other animals like leopards and deers, the photographic evidence of Tiger is good news," he said.
It may be mentioned that sprawling across 220 square kilometres in the Himalayan foothills, the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary is located along the state's border with Arunachal Pradesh. Earlier, there used to be a huge number of wildlife, including the one-horned rhinos, but unabated encroachment has affected the wildlife severely in the past few decades.
Earlier, this year, an RTI application filed by an activist in Assam exposed that there had been the presence of 38 schools and the construction of paved roads within the wildlife sanctuary.
The RTI activist also alleged that over 1300 families were allocated forest land, despite indications of encroachment, which had drawn the ire of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) earlier this year.
Wildlife biologist and Joint Director and Chief of Strategy for Northeast of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) Rathin Barman expressed his happiness over the evidence of tiger's presence in Sonai Rupai wildlife sanctuary and said that citing a tiger also means that there is more responsibility for everyone now.
Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary
Although the wildlife sanctuary consists of an area of 220 sq km, almost half of the area has been encroached upon by illegal settlers. According to the state forest department statistics, there are about 12,000 people there who have been encroaching upon the forest lands that belonged to Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary. The forest was once thriving with a population of one-horned rhinos, leopards and tigers. There has been massive migration and illegal settlement in Sonai Rupai since the 1980s. The locals say that the unrest in Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts (BTAD) has led people to flee and settle in areas under Sonai Rupai. Subsequently, most of the people have also received land patta settlement there. The government had also established schools and constructed public roads in areas under the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary.
