‘Operation Stripes’ put on hold as starving Explorer stranded in a stone quarry

The Andhra Pradesh State Wildlife Department on Sunday put the search for the 3.5-year-old male tiger, Explorer, on hold temporarily, citing challenges in accessing the spots where the big cat is stranded. However, the department officials believe that it was stranded in the heart of the Dhecherla stone quarry block.

The move comes two days after the government resumed the ‘Operation Stripes’, a wildlife conservation and rescue initiative by the Andhra Pradesh government to relocate the transient tiger which migrated from Tadoba-Andhari tiger reserve in Maharashtra.

By Sunday evening, the big cat was stranded in a mango orchard that is nestled between stone-crushing units and man-made ponds near Dhecherla in East Godavari district. Any further move from the current location would spell a threat to its survival, given the risks involved in walking through the stone crushing units.

According to the data from the GPS tracker attached to Explorer, it could hardly walk two kilometres on Saturday night before it was stranded in the quarry block, indicating the draining of its energy due to the lack of prey for more than four days. Native to Tadoba-Andhari tiger reserve in Maharashtra, the tiger was tranquilised at Kurmapuram village on February 6 and reinstated in the Papikonda National Park on February 14.

The tiger did not resort to attacking any cattle over the past three days, as per the tracking history. Within the past week, the tiger walked for more than 10 kilometres per night in any landscape and human settlements.

The personnel involved in the tranquilisation and vehicles deployed in the operation are not able to move close to the tiger’s location due to terrain challenges.

“The personnel involved in the tranquilising task are waiting for suitable conditions for the safety of the tiger and the people in the local areas”, East Godavari District Forest Officer B. Prabhakara Rao told The Hindu.

Meanwhile, the revenue and police authorities have asked the stone crushing units and quarry operators to stop their operations until further orders and restricted any movement of the vehicles.