On International Tiger Day, The Better India revisits the remarkable story of Zeenat, a young tigress whose disappearance from Odisha's Similipal Tiger Reserve triggered one of India's longest wildlife tracking operations. After travelling nearly 300 kilometres across Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal, she was finally tranquillised, brought back to Similipal and released once again. Many feared the ambitious conservation experiment had failed.A year and a half later, Zeenat has rewritten that narrative.

The same tigress who once dominated headlines as a "runaway" is now raising four healthy cubs in Similipal, marking the first major success of Odisha's tiger supplementation programme aimed at strengthening the reserve's shrinking genetic diversity.

In late December 2024, wildlife headlines across eastern India followed a single tigress as she slipped through forests, crossed state borders, outwitted tracking teams and repeatedly disappeared into rugged hills before anyone could tranquillise her.

For nearly three weeks, Zeenat — a young tigress translocated from Maharashtra's Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve to Odisha's Similipal Tiger Reserve — became the country's most closely watched big cat.

She was called elusive. Restless. Even a "runaway".

Today, nearly a year and a half later, Zeenat walks through Similipal with four growing cubs.

A recent camera trap image released by Odisha's Forest Department tells a very different story from the one that dominated headlines. It shows Zeenat gently carrying one of her cubs in her jaws through the forest.

The tigress who once seemed impossible to settle has done exactly what conservationists hoped she eventually would — establish a territory, find a mate and raise the next generation.

For Similipal, her litter marks the first major success of Odisha's tiger supplementation programme, launched to improve the reserve's shrinking genetic diversity. With the birth of her four cubs, the number of tiger cubs in the reserve has increased from 12 to 16.

Looking back, Zeenat's journey no longer looks like a failed translocation. Instead, it has become a story of patience, instinct and conservation.

When The Better India spoke to Dr Ravikant S Khobragade, the senior wildlife veterinarian at Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve who first radio-collared Zeenat before her move to Odisha, he offered a perspective that puts her journey into context.

"She was never a trouble-tiger," he says. "She was simply looking for space."

A reserve searching for new blood

Similipal has long fascinated wildlife biologists.

It is one of the few places in the world where pseudo-melanistic tigers — popularly known as black tigers — occur in unusually high numbers.

Their striking appearance is caused by a rare recessive genetic mutation that has become more common because the population has remained isolated for generations.

By 2024, Similipal was home to 27 tigers, including 13 pseudo-melanistic animals.

While the black-coated tigers captured public imagination, scientists saw a growing concern. A small, closely related population can reduce genetic diversity over time, making the long-term health of the species more vulnerable.

To address this, the Odisha government launched a tiger supplementation programme in 2024.

The plan is to introduce six genetically unrelated tigers — five females and one male — over five years from central Indian reserves to strengthen Similipal's gene pool.

Meanwhile, Zeenat had other plans

The first tiger to arrive was Jamuna, who reached........

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