MP's famous 'Collarwali' tigress, mother to 29 cubs, dies

“Collarwali”, the famous tigress of Madhya Pradesh’s Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR), who had earned the tag of “supermom” for giving birth to 29 cubs, has died, officials said.

The 17-year-old tigress, also known as T15, died on Saturday evening, they said. She had given birth to 29 cubs in eight litters during the span of 11 years - between 2008 and 2018 - the officials said.

An official from the office of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) confirmed about 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.

According to experts, the average age of a tiger is about 12 years. 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, the officials said. 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, they said. Of the total number of 29 cubs, 25 survived, the officials added. 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, the officials said. Madhya Pradesh, with 526 big cats, had emerged as the “tiger state” of the country in 2018.

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