Tigress from Buxa reserve, recently relocated from Bihar, enters Assam

According to the officials, the tigress, BTR-TF-1 (T-138), crossed the Sankosh River and a road in Gosaigaon in Assam to enter Raimona on October 25, 2026, mostly in search of suitable habitat. File photo: X/@byadavbjp

The tigress BTR-TF-1 (T-138) crossed the Sankosh river and is now roaming around Raimona National Park in Assam in search of suitable habitat

A three-year-old tigress from Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve, relocated to West Bengal’s Buxa Tiger Reserve on October 2, crossed into Assam’s Raimona National Park last week, officials said. 

Also read | Reintroduction of tigers in Buxa: What it means for conservation | Explained

According to the officials, the tigress, BTR-TF-1 (T-138), crossed the Sankosh River and a road in Gosaigaon in Assam to enter Raimona on Sunday (October 25, 2026), mostly in search of suitable habitat. “Once relocated, it takes a tiger a few times to explore its surroundings and establish its own territory. This female Royal Bengal tiger is also just exploring. So far, her movement area has been traced just 3 km away from the Bengal border,” said West Bengal Forest Minister Manoj Oraon. 

Forest officials from Assam and West Bengal, along with a team from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), are now monitoring the tigress closely through its radio collar. The Minister said there was yet no plan to tranquillise it and bring back to Bengal. 

“It is a tiger’s natural habit to explore. We don’t want to disturb the tiger or restrict its movement immediately. We want to let her move around wherever she wants till she establishes a territory. The tigress is healthy, and it is also hunting birds and other animals for consumption,” Mr. Oraon said. 

Boost to tourism

On October 2, the tigress was translocated from Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve and released in the presence of Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. Mr. Adhikari said three more tigers would be released in Buxa in the next two months, and the initiative would not only help in conservation of wildlife but also in boosting tourism in the region.

Buxa was declared a tiger reserve in 1983, and over the past few years there have been no reports of tiger presence in the region. According to an official statement by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the recovery of Buxa has been a sustained, science-based effort, and the Tiger Augmentation and Recovery Project, initiated by the Government of West Bengal with support from the NTCA and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), has been implemented collaboratively since 2018.

Forest officials say this new tigress from Bihar will be subjected to intensive post-release monitoring using a combination of telemetry, camera trapping and field-based monitoring to assess her movement, adaptation, health and behaviour.

West Bengal also has a resident tiger population in the Sundarbans, where the last tiger census has revealed the presence of 100 tigers in the unique mangrove ecosystem.

The restoration of tigers in Buxa will augment tiger presence in north Bengal, which has significant ecological linkages with the forests of Assam and Bhutan and provides opportunities for movement and dispersal of wildlife across a larger connected landscape, the statement said.

The NTCA, in collaboration with different State governments, has taken up tiger reintroduction initiatives across 12 tiger reserves, from Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan to Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha.

Published - October 29, 2026 07:22 pm IST