NEWSLINK: Nepal’s Highest Tiger Sighting Is A Reminder To Save The Big Cat's Himalayan Home

Recently, a camera trap has captured a Royal Bengal Tiger at an elevation of 2,497 meters in the densely forested mountains of Dadeldhura in far-western Nepal. It is the country's highest-ever recorded tiger sighting. Although Bengal tigers have been reported at higher elevations in India (3,602 meters) and Bhutan (4,038 meters), Nepal's national record reminds us of the value of the high-altitude forested Himalayan mountains as a habitat for these endangered big cats. To understand the significance of this sighting and its role in shaping future tiger conservation strategies, World Atlas spoke to Dr. Ghana S. Gurung, country representative of World Wildlife Fund-Nepal (WWF-N).

"Tigers are highly adaptive species with their range spanning from sea levels to mountainous regions, so it isn’t surprising that they’ve been recorded at 2,497metres. The significance is huge for a small country like Nepal. With this finding, the tiger range in Nepal extends to the Mahabharata range, and beyond the boundaries of Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) - the only landscape in Nepal with known tiger distribution to date. This finding will, therefore, form the basis for shaping the conservation of tigers in Nepal beyond the Terai Arc Landscape" - WWF-N.

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