Evidence of tiger presence in Goa: Official

PANAJI - There is good news on the tiger conservation front. A top forest department official has confirmed the presence of tigers in the forests of Goa.

Additional principal chief conservator of forests Shashi Kumar said the department had indirect evidence of tiger presence in the four wildlife sanctuaries which ring the hinterland of the state.

There is a possibility of tiger presence in the state’s forest. There is evidence of its presence which will be confirmed through camera trapping method, Kumar told reporters after a wildlife-related function here Saturday.

Kumar said the indirect evidence was collected during the course of the wildlife census which was conducted in the state’s forests which are contiguous to Maharashtra and Karnataka. The census was carried out with the assistance of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), a central government institute based in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Members of the Western ghat conservation panel have already suggested that the forests of Goa should be notified as a tiger reserve, a move which has been resisted by the state forest department in the past.

A tiger had also been poached in the Mhadei wildlife sanctuary, about 60 km from here, last year which had resulted in the arrest of three people.