TNI Bureau: In what can be considered as a sad news for the animal lovers, tiger ‘T-1’ of Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh died on Tuesday.

According to Brijendra Jha, the director of PTR, a patrolling team spotted the carcass of the big cat in the Madla range.

As nothing suspicious was found in the are it is suspected that T-1 died naturally, said Jha adding that the team also spotted the inactive radio collar, which was worn by T-1 in 2017 near the carcass.

Soon, a team of forest officials reached the spot and carried out an investigation into the matter.

The carcass of T-1 was disposed as per the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) guidelines after conducting the postmortem on Wednesday morning.

Besides, the viscera of the big cat also has been sent to the laboratories at Sagar and Jabalpur for examination.

T-1 was donpato in MP’s Bandhavgarh National Park. It was brought to Panna in 2009 as part of an ambitious reintroduction programme after the reserve was left with no tigers.

Along with it, another tigress, T-2, from Kanha National Park and a male tiger T-3, from Pench Tiger Reserve, were also shifted to Panna.

Now, Panna Tiger Reserve has a population of 80 big cats (cubs and sub-adults), with T1 contributing to this remarkable success story by delivering 13 cubs in five litters, including four in her last in 2016.

For rising 0 to 80, Panna is said to be one of the most successful tiger recovery programme in the world and with the death of T-1, undoubtedly a glorious chapter in the successful tiger reintroduction programmes ended on Tuesday.

Above was the picture taken in 2010 by monitoring team in a gorge which documented first birth of tigers after the recovery programme was started in Panna.

Panna is one of the most successful tiger recovery programme world over.

In pIcture; T1 with the cubs.

— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) February 3, 2023