In A First, Royal Bengal Tiger Caught On Camera In Sikkim

 GANGTOK: In a first, forest officials in Sikkim have managed to capture footage of a Royal Bengal Tiger at the Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary in East Sikkim.

"History has indeed been made with the first-ever camera footage of a Royal Bengal Tiger roaming in the forest of Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary in East Sikkim," Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of East Wildlife Division, Dechen Lachungpa, said.

The camera set up by forest officials captured two images of the tiger on December, 6, at an altitude of 9,583 feet, the DFO said. "We got to know about the camera trap images only a couple of days ago," the forest official added.

Dechen Lachungpa also said that there had been oral narratives of tigers freely roaming in the forests of Sikkim until the late 1980s but there has been no video or photographic evidence.

This first-ever picture of the animal could be a milestone in the study on migration of tigers to the Himalayan state, forest officials say.