female forest beat guard

Istari, 28, who located tigress Avni's two cubs -- a male and female -- in Yavamtal over a 45-day camerawork is seen with her team and officials. Istari chosen for honour by NTCA.

NEW DELHI: Every night since tigress Avni was shot dead, Sidam Pramila Istari knew there could be no deviation in her routine — get to the 80-hectare enclosure at Yavatmal’s Anji Range where the big cat’s two cubs were thought to be, and wait. Often all night. More than a year and a half later, her efforts that helped save one of them — the other, a male, was last sighted in June 2019 and is yet to be rescued — have been recognised.In September last year, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had proposed that junior forest officers in tiger reserves, the ones on the ground, be recognised for the rescue and conservation work they do. Istari, 28, is one of six who have been chosen for the Rs 1 lakh reward announced on Wednesday. She is the only woman.Avni, the tigress that was supposed to have killed 13 villagers in Pandharkawada-Ralegaon, had to be brought down on November 2, 2018, after the Supreme Court gave a go-ahead to the Maharashtra forest department to shoot her on sight.“I hope this encourages more women to take up such jobs,” Istari, a history major, told TOI on Friday.It’s a tough life though. “I would cross endless stretches of the forest in absolute darkness, hoping to find the cubs. I’d get bruised but I’d push through, sometimes till 3am. The cubs were already a year old and vulnerable. They had to be rescued before they could harm the villagers or be attacked themselves,” she said.It took 45 days. “I would hold a stick in my hand and carry meat as bait. We had marked a 4-km stretch within which we’d operate. I set up 11camera traps, carried memory cards, pug impression pads. But nothing happened,” she said. Then in the second week of December 2018, she saw them. “After four days, a team of rescuers from Dehradun came to Yavatmal and took the female cub away after tranquilising it,” she recalled.The female cub was sent to Pench Tiger Reserve. The male cub is yet to be found. “That’s the only thing on my mind now. I have to find him,” she said