In good news to officials of the Telangana Forest Department, a male tiger was sighted after almost a year at the Kawal Tiger Reserve in the state’s Adilabad district. The tiger, seen in a healthy condition, was captured with camera traps set up in the region, taking the state’s total tiger count to seven.

Officials of the Forest Department were especially pleased as they had been working on making the area more habitable for tigers for the past few years, by developing grasslands and providing water holes.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Nirmal District Forest Officer (DFO) K. Damodar Reddy said, “We are very happy to have him here. The camera traps have taken a picture of the animal on Saturday morning. We have developed the habitat that is required for the tigers and we are expecting that this tiger would stay here as a resident. It is believed that the tiger has arrived from Maharashtra.”

Field Director Chandrashekhar Saravanan in a statement said that the tiger’s pug marks were also captured in Kadem range in Kawal and it was being tracked and monitored to ensure that it remained healthy.

“We are continuously monitoring its movement. We suspect it came to Kawal either from the Tippeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary or Tadoba National Park in Maharashtra. We have sent the images of the tiger to Maharashtra Forest Department to determine its identity, which can be determined by comparing images Maharashtra has because of the unique stripe pattern on each tiger,” Sarvanan told Telangana Today.

With the tiger being spotted, officials are also visiting nearby villages and creating awareness among locals, to avoid any conflict.

Media reports suggest that one more tigress had earlier made the corridor area of Kagaznagar her home and had even given birth in the state. However, all the cubs from her first litter remain untraceable barring one three-year-old female.