Satkosia Tiger Reserve authorities have pressed a trained elephant from the Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary into service to capture tigress Sundari.
The jumbo called Jasoda was brought to Satkosia on Saturday morning. The mahut, a forester and a doctor accompanied her.
Operation Sundari will commence on Sunday with the help of Jasoda. She will first be taken to the forest to acclimatise. Her mental and physical condition here are being on observation, according to the forest department source.
“We have kept the jumbo at Purunakote range office. Her mental and physical condition are being watched. On Sunday, she will be taken to Satkosia to launch the effort to capture Sundari, which is now at the nearby Purunakote forest. The Madhya Pradesh and Odisha teams will be engaged in the task. Sundari has yet been elusive to the tranquillise team. We hope this time the team will be successful to capture her with the help of Jasoda,” said Satkosia wildlife divisional forest officer Ramaswamy.
The two tranquillising teams from Madhya Pradesh have been trying to tranquillise and capture Sundari for the past five days. The teams are headed by two doctors named Sandeep Agrawalla and Akhilesh MIshra. They joined the teams on October 23 and have been trailing the tigress from one forest to another without success.
“They are said to have wide experience in capturing tigers in the Madhya Pradesh forests by tranquillising them. So, the Odisha government had roped them in for the task,” said a forest official.
Initially, there had been three Odisha teams from Nandankanan, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology and Satkosia engaged since October 23 for tranquillising the tigress, which allegedly killed two persons after it was released in the wild on August 17 from the special enclosure at Raigoda.
Only one shot was fired by the team on October 24, but that missed the target. There was no opportunity further to try on her as she remained in bushes. Even the prey was given and the urine of male tiger sprayed to lure her, but that did not work.
