A mechanised boat stood at the edge of the Dhuliabasani forest, near Kalash island, at low tide on Wednesday afternoon.
On board the trawler was a trap cage. As soon as the door of the cage was lifted, out jumped a tiger.
The big cat, which was captured in a trap cage late on Tuesday, landed straight into the water and swam away towards the soft muddy river bank as cheers rang out from the boat.
The island is flanked by the Matla river on one side and the Bidyadhari river on the other.
Several foresters took out their cellphones and cameras and clicked the tiger with the setting sun in the background.
The tiger swims across a creek after being released at the edge of the Dhuliabasani forest in the Sunderbans on Wednesday afternoon.
The tiger was captured using a goat in a trap cage as bait in Bhubaneswari village. Foresters said it was the same big cat that had strayed into paddy fields skirting the village, under Maipith coastal police station, and had been spotted several times by villagers.
The village is around 96km from Kolkata and 27km from Kultali town, in South 24-Parganas district.
The spot where the tiger was released is at quite a distance and can be only reached by boats.
A senior forest department official said the tiger had entered the village by swimming across a small creek that forms and ebbs during high and low tide.
The tiger had not killed any livestock or attacked anyone in the village.
“The tiger had walked into one of the trap cages set on the edge of a paddy field around 10.10pm on Tuesday. We had placed live bait inside both cages as the tiger had been spotted in the village several times in the past couple of days and it had not made a kill,” said the forester.
The tiger runs across the river bank
After its capture the tiger was constantly monitored by two veterinarians of the forest department, said Milan Mondal, the divisional forest officer of the South 24-Parganas division.
“The tiger was healthy and was not dehydrated. It was declared fit for release by the doctors, after which we loaded the cage on the boat and set out for Kalash,” said Mondal.
The tiger’s age is estimated to be five to six years and it was released into the forests of Dhuliabasani in South 24-Parganas division of the Sunderbans.
Chief wildlife warden Debal Ray said the veterinarians had checked the animal for external injuries, which might have led it to get close to a human habitation.
“It was perfectly healthy and we matched the pug marks that were on the paddy field… and they matched. It was released back into the wild without any incident,” said Ray. The forests of the Indian Sunderbans have nylon net fencing spanning over 200km, mostly along the major rivers in the Sunderbans.