fter splitting men and material, the governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have started dividing up the wild animals that roam the vast Nallamala reserve forest. The forest spreads across an area of around 9,000 sq km, of which 60% is in Andhra, with the rest in Telangana. As per the tentative division, Telangana will get 32 tigers, while Andhra will get 40 tigers. "Telangana will also get 75 leopards, 200 bears, 200 wolves, 300 hyenas and 500 jackals. Andhra will get 125 leopards, 250 bears, 400 hyenas and 600 jackals. We are yet to enumerate the deer, black deer and other smaller animals," a senior forest officer at Aranya Bhavan in Hyderabad told The Sunday Guardian.

It is not known how the two states plan to stop their wild animals from straying into the neighbouring state.

Telangana can complain that it is being denied its share of crocodiles as almost all the 125 reptiles at the Ethipotala waterfalls will go to Andhra. "There is no need to worry, we have our own crocodiles at Kuntaka waterfalls in Adilabad," Telangana forest minister Jogu Ramanna told this newspaper.

Forest officials of the two states started the process of dividing each and every animal in the vast jungle that covers the districts of Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar (in Telangana), Kurnool, Prakasam and Guntur (in Andhra Pradesh). The process may take a couple of months.

Presently, there exists a tiger project, which is spread across an area of 7,000 sq km. This will now be split into two zones — the Nagarjunasagar zone covering Telangana, while the area in Andhra will be named as Srisailam zone. This entire area is known for its wild animals and because of conservation measures taken in the last two decades, their numbers have increased manifold.

Telangana has 175 forest officers and staff, while Andhra has 325 officers and staff, besides 300 vacancies. Nallamala reserved forest gets huge funds from the Centre.

The Seemandhra part of the forest will have four divisions — Markapur, Atmakur, Srisailam and Vijayapuri South; whereas Telangana will have two divisions — Nagarjunasagar and Achhampet. The two Telangana divisions have several villages, which are often attacked by the tigers, leopards and wolves.

The reserved forest in Kurnool and Prakasam districts in Andhra too has villages which are prone to attacks by the wild animals. "There is a need to improve the rapid response teams in the department to save the villagers whenever a tiger or a leopard attacks them. This is possible now, as the average division size has shrunk from 70 sq km to 35 sq km," the forest officer said.

Andhra has three other major forest areas: Chittoor forest, which is full of elephants, Rampachodavaram forest, which has minor animals and Visakhapatnam agency area, which has a few wild animals. Telangana has two other forest areas, one in Adilabad, which has leopards, wolves and deer, and the other is in Khammam, which has bears and wolves.

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