Tigress Translocated to West Bengal's Buxa Reserve for Reintroduction

The tiger is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which gives it the highest legal protection against hunting and trade (meaning no commercial use or hunting is permitted at all). Project Tiger, launched in 1973 with nine reserves, now covers 58 Tiger Reserves across 18 states. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body created under the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006, approves and oversees all tiger translocation and reintroduction decisions under the environment ministry.

Buxa was declared India's 15th Tiger Reserve in 1983 and spans 760.87 sq km in the Alipurduar sub-division of West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district. Not every well-known protected area nearby carries the same legal status. Buxa connects eastward to the Manas Tiger Reserve in Assam, itself a notified Tiger Reserve, while the adjoining Jaldapara National Park to its west is only a National Park, not a Tiger Reserve. This distinction matters because NTCA's reintroduction mandate and core-buffer management rules apply specifically to Tiger Reserves, not to every protected area that holds wildlife. Over the decades, habitat degradation, fragmentation, land-use change and a shrinking prey base left Buxa without a stable resident tiger population, even though transient tigers were occasionally recorded, mostly in winter.