Collarwali, the famous tigress of Madhya Pradesh’s Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) died on Saturday Evening and PTR staff performed her last rites.
On Twitter, many people praised the move of the Forest department for paying respectful last rites to a tigress. Ankur Raparia IRS wrote, “She lived like a queen for 17 years in Pench and gave birth to 29 cubs. End of an era. RIP #collarwali”.
The 17-year-old tigress, also known as T15, died on Saturday evening, said Ashok Kumar Mishra, Field Director of PTR.
“She had given birth to 29 cubs in eight litters during the span of 11 years – between 2008 and 2018,” Mishra told The Daily Guardian.
The office of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) confirmed the death of the tigress without disclosing any other information. The tigress, who looked very weak due to old age, was last seen on January 14 by the PTR visitors.
This female cub was radio-collared in March 2008. After that radio collar stopped functioning, she was again radio-collared in January 2010. The tigress later became famous as “Collarwali” or T15 tigress, Mishra said. According to experts, the average lifespan of a tiger is about 12 years.
Collarwali had first given birth to three cubs in May 2008, but they could not survive. For the last time, the tigress delivered four cubs in December 2018, which took the number of her cubs to 29. Officials feel that this number could be a record.
As per officials, of the total number of 29 cubs, 25 survived, and in a rare occurrence, Collarwali, born as one of the four cubs to famous tigress T-7 in September, 2005, had given birth to a litter of five cubs (four females and one male) on October 23, 2010.
Madhya Pradesh, with 526 big cats, had emerged as the “tiger state” of the country in 2018.