Tiger at Kalesar National Park in Yamunanagar caught on camera

Shiv Kumar Sharma

Yamunanagar, April 27

A tiger has been spotted in a camera trap at Kalesar National Park in Yamunanagar district. Sources said the tiger was seen in the camera trap near Gugga Fire Line of this forest on April 18.

Sources said the authorities of the Forest and Wildlife Department, Yamunanagar, had got information about the likely presence of a tiger in Kalesar National Park in the last week of January this year.

Acting on this, a team of the local Wildlife Department visited the Chikan Fire Line area of the national park and found three suspected tiger pugmarks there.

Following the likelihood of the presence of the big cat, the Forest and Wildlife Department, Haryana, had started keeping tabs in the national park, where the suspected pugmarks were found.

Sources said the department put several cameras in the forest, besides installing two motion sensor cameras near Gugga Fir Line, which captured the photos of the tiger.

As per available information, the tiger might have come here roaming from Rajaji National Park, Dehradun, in Uttarakhand, which has a large number of tigers.

After the development, Haryana Forest and Environment Minister, Kanwar Pal Gujjar, also posted a photo of the tiger on the Facebook and wrote that the presence of a tiger in national park was a matter of pride for the entire state. In his post, he further wrote that wildlife was a natural heritage and all should work for its protection.

Kalesar National Park (spread over 11,570 acres in Yamunanagar district), Kalesar Wildlife Sanctuary (having an area of 13,209 acres) and Sher Jung National Park, Simbalwada in Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh are connected to Rajaji National Park through a dense forest area.

According to information, leopards, elephants, barking deer, wild boars, sambars and several other species of wild animals and birds are found in Kalesar National Park and Kalesar National Sanctuary.

Meanwhile, officials of the Forest and Wildlife Department were tight-lipped on the matter.

‘Camera trap’

Photos of the animal were captured on April 18 by a motion sensor camera installed near Gugga Fire Line of the park