KOLKATA: Authorities in India’s biggest tiger reserve plan to put satellite-linked radio collars on big cats as part of new conservation methods to save the endangered animal, a forest official said on Tuesday. The new monitoring moves in the mangrove marshlands of the Sunderbans in the eastern state of West Bengal come amid growing alarm over the country’s rapidly dwindling tiger population because of rampant poaching.

“For the first time in India, satellite-linked radio collars for tigers are being introduced so that we can get vital information necessary for effective tiger management,” said Atanu Raha, West Bengal’s chief forest conservator.

“We will track down the tigers, shoot them with sedatives and fix the radio collars on them before releasing them back in the wild.”

The radio collars bought from the United States will be fixed on four Bengal tigers in the nearly 10,000 sq km forest, one of the last surviving natural habitats of the tiger that straddles West Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh.

Experts will study satellite data for the movement pattern of tigers, habitat preferences and behaviour.

Last year, authorities counted 274 tigers in the Indian part of the Sunderbans that is also home to hundreds of salt water crocodiles and rare river dolphins.

India has intensified efforts to protect its tiger population after reports in March that the entire tiger population at the Sariska tiger reserve in western India had been killed by poachers. There were 16-18 tigers in Sariska a year ago.

Animal rights activists say the story may be the same in other sanctuaries across the country where a century ago there were some 40,000 tigers but now the number is down to just about 3,700. Some environment groups put the number at less than 2,000.—Reuters