Tigress Katrina delivers 3rd litter in 3 years

NAGPUR: Defying the general perception that a tigress rears its cubs for around two years before delivering another litter, six-year-old Katrina (B3) tigress in Bor Tiger Reserve has delivered her third litter in 2.5 years, with a gap of just 14 months between each litter.

On Sunday, tourists were thrilled to sight three 3-month-old cubs of Katrina at a waterhole. Katrina is the dominant female of the little known and smallest tiger reserve Bor (138.12 sq km), 60km from Nagpur in Wardha district. Staff and officials monitoring the tigress since 2013 said Katrina delivered the first litter of four cubs (2 males and 2 females) in October 2014. The second litter of three (2 females and 1 male) cubs was born on January 2016, and now the third litter in March 2017.

One of the cubs from the second litter was killed by a wild dog last year. Male tiger Yuvraj and female Pinky are still being sighted by tourists at Bor's Adegaon gate. All other cubs did well and dispersed in buffer zone and other forest areas through the fragmented corridors.


With six more years to go in Katrina's lifespan in the wild, at this rate the tigress at an average of 3-4 cubs can deliver 20 more cubs, breaking the record of MP Pench's Collarwali, which has so far given 26 cubs from seven litters.