Bird watchers’ global meet on Nov 25

The three-day ‘Global Bird Watcher’s Conference’ will be held in Khijadia from November 25. About 100 participants from abroad and different parts of the state are expected to attend the conference.

Officials in the tourism department said that the conference was being planned in order to put Khijadia on the global map like Nal Sarovar and to make it a tourist attraction. Also, the conference will be held during that time of the year when migratory birds are found in large numbers.

Khijadia is the only place where fresh water and sea water is found. It also witnesses about 250 different species of bird flocking here every year.Chief Minister Narendra Modi has posted a message on Gujarat Tourism website and said that Gujarat is fast emerging as an eco-tourism destination, boasting of a wide range of pristine and even hitherto unexplored destination for avid nature lovers. He adds that over 350 species of birds from distant lands are found here since decades.

While tourism department officials said Khijadia falls on way to Dwarka and is just 15 km away from Jamnagar and so this route which is in bad shape will be repaired soon.

About 100 experts from abroad and other states as well as another 300 participants from Gujarat will be attending the conference. Moreover, papers would be presented on migratory birds and the route they take to reach Khijadia, their behaviour and breeding pattern will be studied. An interpretation center has also been constructed.

Relocation of tiger to Panna put off for now

New Delhi: Worried over safety of four new-born tiger cubs, the Madhya Pradesh government has put on hold its plan to relocate a new male big cat to Panna sanctuary.


‘‘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.