Wounded tiger finds new home

Guwahati, June 2 (UNI) The Centre for Rescue and Rehabilitation of Wild Animals (CRRWA), India's first animal rescue centre, added a new feather to its cap when it successfully treated a full grown tiger and handed it over to the Asom state zoo today.

The tiger, fondly named Rajeev, was found in a dying condition in the middle of the Orang National Park following a nightlong fight with another big cat over territorial dispute in the month of March.

According to forest sources, so ferocious was the fight that almost one fourth of the forest guards of the park could hear it.

However, in the morning they found the tiger bleeding severally as it had received major injuries over neck and back.

Responding to an SOS, the CRRWA vets and other staff took him to the rescue centre located near the Kaziranga national park where it was treated.

Today afternoon Rajeev got a new home as the forest officials found it too risky to send her again in the wild, Orang has nearly 20 tigers. With Rajeev, the number of tiger in the Asom state zoo has gone up to 8.

The CRRWA is meanwhile getting ready for yet another assignment as the flood waters have started entering the Kaziranga national park. Two baby elephants were separated from their herd last year when the Brahmaputra flooded. But luckily, they were found by the CRRWA and brought to a shelter.

They are being reared for at least another year before they are rehabilitated into the wild. And to ensure that the process is smooth, their only contact with human beings in this year will be restricted to their keeper and a doctor. For the staff at the centre, releasing animals back into the wild comes from practice.

Other flood orphans under the centre's care are a baby wild buffalo and a rhino calf. In the wild, both animals share each other's grazing areas peacefully. And though they are herbivores, returning them to the wild is a demanding task - they will have to learn to forage for themselves and recognise their enemies.

The rhino calf will have to stay for at least two more years by that time it will be able to when he can fend for himself and protect himself from his main enemy - the tiger.

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