Overview
- The three-year-old tigress known as Rani escaped from the 2.2-hectare 25th Mile enclosure on Sunday by reportedly digging beneath the foundation and moved east toward Assam.
- Rani was returned to Buxa after a joint West Bengal–Assam operation on November 3 that tranquillised and transported her back following earlier movements into Assam’s Raimona landscape.
- The animal has been tranquillised three times in 34 days, her radio collar has lost signal for extended periods, and teams have repeatedly tracked her near human settlements.
- Forest departments have issued a red alert and launched inter-state search teams to trace her while experts question the enclosure foundation, monitoring systems and the trade-offs of repeated darting.
- The reintroduction project aims to establish tigers in north Bengal and uses acclimatisation enclosures to help translocated animals adapt, but this episode raises fresh calls for a technical review of facility design and cross-jurisdiction response protocols.