The longest ever walk by a tiger in India has been recorded in Maharashtra’s Tipeshwar wildlife sanctuary. The wild animal walked 1,300 kms over five months to set the unintended benchmark. The country now has as many as 2,967 tigers in the wild, with more than half of them in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, according to the latest tiger estimation report for 2018, released in July this year.
The news was shared by Parveen Kaswan, an Indian Forest Service officer, through his Twitter handle. Kaswan, with 60,200 followers on the social media platform, often tweets on nature and wildlife.
“A #tiger has just walked into record books. Undertaken longest walk ever recorded in #India of 1,300km in five months. In search of prey, territory or a mate he is crossing #roads, fields, #canals etc. Without harming anybody. Closely monitored by dept. Wonders of #Nature,” he tweeted, going on to give credit to Tipeshwar wildlife sanctuary and the BBC.
The range for the total tiger population in the wild is 2,603-3,346. The population has increased by nearly 33% since the last census in 2014 when the total estimate was 2,226.
Maharashtra, at 312, has the fourth highest tiger population in the country, following Madhya Pradesh (526), Karnataka (524) and Uttarakhand (442).
The tiger bearing habitats are divided into five landscape regions—Shivalik-Gangetic plains, Central India and the Eastern Ghats, Western Ghats, North Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra Flood Plains and the Sundarbans.
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