“A six—year old tigress from Kanha Tiger Reserve was put in the wild of the park directly on Sunday morning,” Panna Tiger Reserve's Field Director R S Murthy said.

“It is for the first time in the country that a tigress has been put in the wild directly,” he said, adding that normally animals are first kept in an enclosure before shifting them to the wilderness.

Mr. Murthy said that this tigress had been raised in an enclosure in Kanha, after her mother died shortly after the delivery.

The new entrant of Panna has been radio—collared for the purpose of monitoring, he said.

With this, the number of translocated tigresses to this reserve has increased to three.

Last year, two tigresses and a tiger were shifted to Panna, which is spread over 543 sq km across Panna and Chhatarpur districts.

A tigress from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve was brought in March 2009 and another one was translocated from Kanha in the same month. Thereafter, a tiger was brought from Pench Tiger Reserve.

Cubs

The two translocated tigresses gave birth to cubs last year, officials said, adding that five cubs had been spotted so far.

Panna Tiger Reserve, which once had more than 35 tigers, had become devoid of the big cat, allegedly due to poaching, by 2009.-