File picture of a tiger at Nandankanan

Bhubaneswar, May 21: The state forest department officials made it clear that the Royal Bengal tiger, which had strayed into Nandankanan zoo last year, would be released in the wild only with a radio collar.

Earlier, the state government had said that the tiger would be released without a radio collar due to delay in release of funds by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for the GPS-based device.

Principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), S.S. Srivastava said a team of scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India would visit the state this month. “They will visit Similipal Tiger Reserve to take stock of the prey base and other facilities needed before releasing the tiger there,” said Srivastava.

Earlier, five tigers were released in the wild after attaching radio collars on them in the Sundarbans in 2010. These collars help in analysing the locations of tigers.

Five tigers — two adult females and three adult males — were tagged with satellite radio collars as a part of a study on the Sunderbans tigers. The satellite collars used there weighed less than 1.5 per cent of the body weight of the animals and hence, were not creating any difficulties in their movements.

“According to NTCA guidelines, the tiger should be released in a suitable habitat with a radio collar. So we are waiting for release of funds for radio collaring the tiger,” said a senior forest official.

However, wildlife activists are apprehending that the tiger might not be able to hunt on its own after staying in captivity for the past one year.

“Though the forest officials have decided to release the tiger in its natural habitat, the process has been delayed. The authorities must ensure that the tiger is able to adapt to the new habitat,” said member secretary of People For Animal Sanjib Kumar Das.

On the other hand, Srivastava said that in several instances, tigers have been released in their natural habitat after being kept captive for two years. The seven-year-old tiger, which strayed into the zoo on April 29 last year, was the second big cat to have entered the zoo in this way. In 1960, another Royal Bengal tiger from Chandaka forest entered the zoo to mate a captive tigress.