Rescue act: On tiger reintroduction in West Bengal’s Buxa

The first tiger to be reintroduced in West Bengal represents a triumph of bureaucracy, not ecology. After the National Tiger Conservation Authority found no tigers in the Buxa, Dampa, and Palamau reserves by 2018, it mooted a programme with the Bengal Forest Department and the Wildlife Institute of India that has culminated with a royal Bengal tigress caught in Bihar to be released in Buxa. She is the first of seven to be relocated over two years. Buxa is dotted with settlements and surrounded by revenue villages and tea estates. The region already hosts an elephant population routinely threatened by a railway line, with the railways also planning to restore a route to Jainti. Commercial traffic on the Bhutan-West Bengal road through Buxa is another problem. Estates are also notorious for fragmenting the landscape, including migration corridors. The area’s forests have turned into dense woodland with a closed canopy, stifling the growth of grasses and causing herbivore populations to dwindle. The density of chitals, tigers’ prey, is dismal; goats, macaques and cattle have become more common in tiger diets in place of their preferred ungulates. Since 2018, the collaboration has reintroduced chitals; artificially opened some canopies to help revive grasslands; and relocated villagers from the reserve’s core to mitigate human-wildlife conflicts. This last measure is, however, also a window into the cynical character of the reintroduction programme.From 1973, India followed preventive conservation practices that protected source populations and their habitats, and maintained prey bases and corridors. Buxa, however, belongs to a more recent, more reactive tradition that also includes Sariska and Panna, where authorities intervened only after tiger populations crashed. A reintroduction programme showcases technical capabilities but is also more expensive and heavy-handed, and reflects Project Tiger’s problematic belief that the core habitat needs to be inviolate — one the state machinery has used to override the rights of Adivasis and forest-dwelling communities and disrupt incomes from ecotourism. The reserve is also part of an international wildlife corridor contiguous with Phibsoo in Bhutan, to the north, and Manas in Assam to the east. If these forests offer higher prey density or fewer disturbances, the tigers may disperse. Success at Buxa means introduced tigers establish territories and produce cubs, which survive and breed, with natural immigration maintaining genetic diversity. But success should also be an advance, rather than a rescue, and entails monitoring ecological deterioration such that the state does not wait for tigers to vanish to act and involving communities in and around Buxa in decisions about preventing conflicts and protecting livelihoods. Published - October 03, 2026 12:10 am IST