"Rescue act: On tiger reintroduction in West Bengal’s Buxa"
Source-sink translocation
moving tigers from a high-density source reserve to a reserve where they have locally disappeared.
Critical Tiger Habitat (CTH)
an inviolate core zone within a tiger reserve kept largely free of human activity for undisturbed breeding.
India's tiger conservation framework is built on the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Schedule I of this Act gives tigers and other endangered species the highest legal protection against hunting and trade. Project Tiger, launched in 1973 with nine reserves, has grown to 58 Tiger Reserves across 18 states. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) was given statutory powers through the 2006 amendment to the Act. That amendment also introduced the concept of Critical Tiger Habitat (CTH), a core zone kept largely free of human activity so tigers can breed undisturbed. Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh holds the largest CTH area of any reserve in the country, showing how unevenly this inviolate core idea has been applied across India's reserve network.
Buxa Tiger Reserve in North Bengal was declared a Tiger Reserve in 1983. It sits within a trans-boundary landscape linked to forests in Bhutan and Assam. Over subsequent decades, habitat degradation, land-use change, and a shrinking prey base eroded the conditions needed to sustain a resident tiger population. Tigers continued to be recorded passing through occasionally, but no stable breeding population remained.
India's standard response to such local extinction is translocation under a source-sink model. Genetically robust, high-density reserves act as sources and donate individuals to reserves where tigers have disappeared. Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan lost its entire tiger population by 2005 and was repopulated through translocation from Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, establishing this template. The same logic now underlies the reintroduction at Buxa.
The source-sink translocation model works on a clear ecological principle. A reserve with a surplus tiger population can spare individuals without harming its own breeding dynamics. The receiving reserve must first demonstrate habitat readiness, adequate prey availability, and sufficient protection capacity before any animal is moved. The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the NTCA assess these conditions before approving a translocation plan. This is not a simple relocation exercise. It requires years of preparatory work to rebuild the ecological foundations of the sink reserve.
Since 2018, the Tiger Augmentation and Recovery Project, run by the West Bengal government with support from the NTCA and the WII, has worked to rebuild Buxa's ecological foundations. This involved supplementing the prey base, strengthening anti-poaching infrastructure, and improving habitat connectivity across the reserve's landscape. …
Consider the following pairs:
1.Dampa Tiger Reserve : Mizoram
2.Gumti Wildlife Sanctuary : Sikkim
3.Saramati Peak : Nagaland
Which of the above pairs is/are correctly matched?
Consider the following protected areas:
1.Bandipur
2.Bhitarkanika
3.Manas
4.Sunderbans
Which of the above are declared Tiger Reserves?
Recently there was a proposal to translocate some of the lions from their natural habitat in Gujarat to which one of the following sites?
Among the following Tiger Reserves, which one has the largest area under 'Critical Tiger Habitat'?
In India, if a species of tortoise is declared protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, what does it imply?
Consider the following statements regarding the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA):
1.It was granted statutory powers through the 2006 amendment to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
2.It functions under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
3.It is empowered to oversee the notification of Critical Tiger Habitats within tiger reserves.
How many of the above statements are correct?
The 'source-sink' model of tiger translocation, first validated in India through the repopulation of which reserve, underlies the recent tiger reintroduction in West Bengal's Buxa Tiger Reserve?
Match the following Tiger Reserves with the state in which they are located:
Reserve: 1. Buxa 2. Palamau 3. Manas 4. Dampa
State: (i) Assam (ii) Mizoram (iii) West Bengal (iv) Jharkhand
With reference to Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, consider the following statements:
1.It applies a single, uniform level of legal protection regardless of the taxon of the listed species.
2.A species listed under Schedule I receives the same level of protection as the tiger.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Buxa Tiger Reserve's trans-boundary wildlife corridor connects it with which of the following forest landscapes?
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