A Royal Bengal tiger has been spotted at Lava inside the Neora Valley National Park in Kalimpong, two years after a big cat was sighted at the sanctuary.
“We have installed trap cameras at various locations to keep a watch on tigers and other animals in the park. One of these cameras, near Lava, clicked a tiger at 6.07am on December 18,” said Nisha Goswami, the divisional forest officer of Gorumara, on Wednesday.
Neora Valley is spread over 159.89sqkm. Tigers were seen for the first time at Neora Valley in 1993. Twenty-four years later, on January 19, 2017, cab driver Anmol Chhetri spotted a tiger near Lava.
“Till now, six tigers have been clicked by the trap cameras at Neora Valley. It seems the Royal Bengal tiger clicked last month is a male. We will send the photos and other details to the Wildlife Institute of India for further analysis. As of now, we cannot say whether it is a new tiger or one of the tigers that had been clicked earlier,” Goswami said.
