‘‘If we shift a male tiger as planned earlier, it might devour the hapless cubs which are less than two months old,’’ said HS Pabla, principal chief conservator (wildlife), Madhya Pradesh.
‘‘Panna currently has one male and two female big cats, including the lactating one. The cubs will face survival threat if a new alien tiger is introduced...The unrelated male may even kill them if they are not their offsprings...This is a natural tendency among the predators,’’ tiger expert K Shankar said.
The state government, on its part, has beefed up security with the entire area being closed for tourists to ensure safe habitat for the cubs.
Overly cautious and secretive, tigresses are often reluctant to let a stranger male go near their litter and immediately move them far from the area which they feel becomes disturbed or threatened, Shankar said.
A tigress spends nearly 70% of its time nursing its cub for the initial few days after birth. This reduces to 30% by the time the cub is one month old. Approximately half of the litters do not survive to attain the age of two, said scientist from Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India. For instance, Shankar said, last November an 11-month-old female cub was killed inside the Kanha National Park by an adult tiger. In another incident, a two-year- old tigress was attacked and killed by a tiger while trying to protect her cubs.
Young tigers become independent from their mothers around 17 to 24 months of age, when they first settle temporarily in marginal habitats and then take a permanent territory of their own.
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