Environment and forest department minister Tej Pratap Yadav on Friday refused to answer the questions his department had listed in a quiz meant to generate awareness about India's national animal for International Tiger Day.

The department framed five questions related to tigers for a contest and asked residents to answer them through text messages; the prize is a free trip to Valmiki Tiger Reserve, Bihar's lone sanctuary for the big cats.

Having procured the questionnaire prior to its release, The Telegraph tried to find out how well-versed Tej Pratap, who was the chief guest in a programme organised here to mark the day, is about tigers.

The minister, however, politely brushed off the request: "This quiz is for children. You better ask them."

This correspondent then handed the minister the quiz leaflet and requested him to answer at least one or two questions - from the four options given alongside each question - to show his involvement in the quiz. The minister kept walking ahead; asked another question from the list, Tej said: "Please ask anything political." When it was pointed out that his own department had framed the questions, the minister retorted: "Then ask these questions to the people in the department."

As Tej hopped onto a golf cart to reach his vehicle parked near the gate, this correspondent asked the fifth and the last question - in which district is the Valmiki reserve located. The minister kept mum; his golf cart drove off.

A wildlife expert, who had come to attend the event, quipped: "All I can say that it was a clever move on the minister's part to keep silent on the questions, as a wrong answer would have been a big embarrassment." Experts were quick to attribute the lack of awareness at the top level and the dearth of experts to the lackadaisical attitude towards tiger conservation in Bihar. Valmiki Tuger Reserve has lately become a hotbed for poachers. Officials from the New Delhi-based Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, along with reserve officials, had arrested two poachers on January 19. Complete skin and bones of two fully grown royal Bengal tigers were recovered from their possession. During interrogation, the poachers had claimed that they had killed around 10 tigers in the reserve in the past few years.

There is no exact estimate of tigers in the reserve after the last census was conducted in 2013; the forest department has not been able to present the report on the annual tiger survey conducted in 2015.

According to National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) guidelines, starting from 2012, all reserves must keep collecting photographs of tigers using camera traps almost through the year, except during the monsoon. The first such annual census was conducted at Valmiki in 2013, which pegged the minimum number of big cats at 22.

Department sources claimed that around 400 camera traps were installed in the reserve and monitoring was done between November last year and end-January this year. The report is, however, yet to be finalised.