Ustad – the tiger brought from Ranthambore to Udaipur for being a man-eater may be shifted to a bigger accommodation outside Udaipur. Ustad – the T24 tiger at Ranthambore was shifted to Udaipur in May, 2015 and since then has been kept at Sajjangarh Biological park.

If all goes as per plan, Ustad might be shifted from his less than 1 hectare area in Sajjangarh to a tiger reserve with over 50 hectares to move around. Ustad’s health has suffered ever since he was brought from the 5000 hectare Ranthambore reserve and kept in the 1 hectare enclosure. Chances of Ustad being left in the wild are near zero as he may still be dangerous to human beings and he will mostly be shifted to Sariska or some other tiger reserve.

Forest department has been at logger heads with National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) ever since the relocation of Ustad. NTCA is India’s apex body for tiger conservation and they accused forest department of wrongly terming Ustad a man-eater.

The details were given by Gajendra Singh Khimsar, Rajasthan’s minister of environment and wildlife. He mentioned that before relocation they need to get his health tests done and his blood samples have been sent to the laboratory in Bareilly.

If all goes well, Ustad could be soon moving into a bigger home.