KOLKATA: In another couple of months, north Bengal 's Buxa Tiger Reserve will become home to six big cats from Assam. If the detailed project report submitted to the state recently by the Global Tiger Forum (GTF) is to be believed, Buxa, in the first phase, will get six tigers - two males and four females - from either Kaziranga National Park or Orang in Assam, both of which now have surplus tiger population.TOI had earlier reported about the project when the Centre had given its in-principle nod last November.Bengal's chief wildlife warden Pradeep Vyas confirmed receiving the DPR. "We will give some suggestions and submit it back to the GTF and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) by the end of this month. We expect the first phase relocation to begin within two months," he said.According to him, once the first phase relocation is over, there are plans to reintroduce at least six more big cats in the next nine years to carry on with the `tiger re-stocking plan'. "We have plans to reloca te two tigers in every three years till 2026 keeping Buxa's sink zones, including the forests of Bhutan and Assam and north Bengal's Jaldapara, in mind. This is a landscape in a whole, which tigers use to migrate in search of food, mates and territory ," he said, adding that they have plans to release 50 sambar deer from Jaldapara to improve the prey base in Buxa.But wildlife enthusiasts are keeping their fingers crossed since Assam had earlier taken U-turn in 2010 and refused to hand over critically endangered pygmy hogs to the Bengal government under a similar reintroduction plan. Before that, the Assam government had also refused to part ways with its Barasingha, a threatened deer species.Saying that they were aware about the tiger relocation plan, a senior forest official from Assam only said: "We are waiting for the DPR and a final communication from the NTCA.""Once all decks are cleared, issues like transportation of the tigers from Assam, radiocollaring the big cats and setting up a big enclosure inside the park, where the tigers will be kept for a few days before the release, will have to be taken into account," said state wildlife advisory board member Animesh Bose, adding that grassland, an ideal hunting ground for tiger, has already been developed in Nimati and a few other areas inside the reserve.Wildlife Institute of India (WII) scientist K Ramesh, who leads post-release monitoring programme for tiger reintroduction and had earlier monitored such a programme in MP's Panna, is giving scientific inputs for the project in Buxa too. "Buxa is a different landscape and plans will be chalked out accordingly . Details will be worked out after a final nod from the NTCA and the state government," he said.

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