BIJNOR: Bijnor forest department reached a new milestone on Monday. Finally, the district got a tranquilizing team which will ensure that wild animals do not stray off the forests.The district has two forest divisions and eleven ranges with forest area of 54,898 hectare. While, Rajgarh range is an elephant zone, Amangarh is a tiger reserve area.Animals from these forests often stray into plane areas, damaging crops of sugarcane, pulses, wheat, paddy and vegetables. Though tranquilizing guns in the district have been available for long now, they had not been brought to use due to the inability of a team with an expertise to use them. Now, the district will not be dependent on Corbett Park for tranquilising team.District forest officer M Semmaran said, "We have trained a tranquilizing team including a veterinary doctor, a tranquilizer and shooters. For three days, a training camp was being held at Amangarh area."He added, "We had tranquilizer guns and drugs but not expert shooters and trained tranquilizer. As a result, we could not use the guns and drugs. Presently, the dates of drugs have expired. Now we will get new drugs."In last six months, about five incidents of man-animal conflict have been reported from the region. To tranquilize the leopards and make them return to the forest, the department used to call a team from Corbett Park of Uttrakhand.

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