Rajasthan state government has revealed that they have no evidence of 13 tigers in the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve since different times in the past three years, January 2019 to January 2022.
While answering a question in the ongoing Assembly session related to missing tigers, the Rajasthan government stated that among these 13 tigers, no evidence had been found of two tigers (T-20 and T-23) since 2019, seven tigers (T-47, T-42, T-64, T-73, T-95, T-97 and T-92 ) since 2020 and four tigers ( T-72, T-62, T-126 and T-100) since 2021.
As per the data, four are female tigress while the rests are male tigers and their ages range between 3 to 17 years. However, the data also adds that while four tigers were old, it is possible that the others may have died naturally, fled from their territory due to the high density of tigers or died in territorial clashes with other tigers.
The government clarified that there is no evidence to prove any of these points as the confirmed reason has not been found.
Among the 13 tigers, while nine are from the Ranthambore core area, two are from the Ranthambore buffer area. The data adds that the rest two lived in the Kailadevi reserve forest outside RTR.
In its reply, the government said that due to the increase in their population and density around Ranthambore, more cases relating to missing tigers, territorial fights between tigers and deaths had surfaced recently.
The government said that the ratio between male and female tigers in Ranthambore Tiger Reserve stands at 1:1.3, which is unnatural.
The data says that most of the tigers, out of the 32 females, are in the breeding age has also contributed to an increased population. They also stated that there are 72 tigers in reserve, of which 19 are cubs.
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