In a first, dummy tigress rears orphaned cubs in Bandhavgarh, Madhya Pradesh

Poachers had killed the tigress and buried it in the forest after being spotted by forest officials

Two cubs drink milk from a dummy adult tigress fitted with milk bottles, at a Bandhavgarh National Park in MP.

The authorities at the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh have been using a dummy toy tigress to raise three 40-days old orphaned tiger cubs, after the death of their biological mother recently.

The toy tigress, especially designed to substitute the real mother and to keep human interference to bare minimum, has been fitted with synthetic nipples and a milk bottle to feed the tiger cubs. The real mother of these cubs had been found dead on January 19 in a non-forest area in Shahdol district. Five people have been arrested for electrocuting the tigress.

Poachers had killed the tigress and buried it in the forest after being spotted by officials. However, a post-mortem conducted on the big cat later revealed that she had delivered three cubs a few weeks before her death. Forest officials launched a search operation to look for the cubs. The cubs were eventually traced to a small cave in the forest.

Director of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, Mridul Pathak said, "The cubs were born about 40 days back. After locating the strayed cubs following the killing of their mother, we placed them in an enclosure in the forest area, where this specially-designed dummy toy tigress was kept." 

"The dummy tigress has been fitted with artificial nipples and milk bottle hidden in the foam and cotton wool. After the initial hiccups, the cubs started to suckle as if they are having it from their own mother," he further added.

Initially the cubs were hand-fed milk and the required medicines by the staff of the forest department. But eventually, the administration decided upon reducing human interference.

Pathak said, "In a bid to reduce the human interference, we decided to keep the cubs with the dummy toy tigress." 

He said that the cubs now play with their dummy mother just as they would with their real mother. This is the first of its kind of experiment in the country. While two of the cubs have now gained strength are are capable of digesting hard food like meat, the third cub still remains weak and survives only on a liquid diet fed through the dummy.