Barring forced photo-ops with politicians, wild tigers have little to do with political constituencies. No surprise, therefore, that Dooars Rani, the tigress released into a bereft Buxa Tiger Reserve in Bengal by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on October 2, decided to wander off into neighbouring Assam. Since it strayed from the area where it was meant to be an attraction, the Bengal authorities pursued it for recapture and return. Buxa has become a cautionary poster for tiger conservation since it does not have a significant number of resident tigers or even tiger presence. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), in its last status report on the big cat, recorded just one tiger sharing the reserve with........

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