Check List 17(5): 1249-1253, doi: 10.15560/17.5.1249
First record of Bengal Tiger, Panthera tigris tigris Linnaeus, 1758 (Felidae), in eastern Nepal
expand article infoDamber Bista‡, Sonam Tashi Lama§, Janam Shrestha§, Yam Bahadur Rumba|, Janno Weerman, Madhuri Thapa#, Haribhadra Acharya¤, Ang Phuri Sherpa§, Nicholas J. Hudson‡, Greg S. Baxter‡, Peter John Murray«
‡ The University of Queensland, Gatton, Australia§ Red Panda Network, Kathmandu, Nepal| Division Forest Office Ilam, Ilam, Nepal¶ Royal Rotterdam Zoological and Botanical Gardens, Rotterdam, Netherlands# Department of Forests and Soil Conservation, Kathmandu, Nepal¤ Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Kathmandu, Nepal« University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia

Corresponding author: Damber Bista ( damb.2007@gmail.com )

Academic editor: Krizler Tanalgo
© Damber Bista, Sonam Tashi Lama, Janam Shrestha, Yam Bahadur Rumba, Janno Weerman, Madhuri Thapa, Haribhadra Acharya, Ang Phuri Sherpa, Nicholas J. Hudson, Greg S. Baxter, Peter John Murray.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Bista D, Lama ST, Shrestha J, Rumba YB, Weerman J, Thapa MK, Acharya H, Sherpa AP, Hudson NJ, Baxter GS, Murray PJ (2021) First record of Bengal Tiger, Panthera tigris tigris Linnaeus, 1758 (Felidae), in eastern Nepal. Check List 17(5): 1249-1253. https://doi.org/10.15560/17.5.1249
Open Access
Abstract

We report the first record of a Bengal Tiger, Panthera tigris tigris, in eastern Nepal in 2020 based on photographic evidence. We documented this evidence at 3,165 m a.s.l., which makes it the highest elevation record of a tiger in Nepal. We recorded this evidence in one of 46 trail cameras deployed for monitoring Red Pandas in the Panchthar-Ilam-Taplejung (PIT) area. The PIT area, which has non-protected status, borders India in the east. Our finding supports the importance of transboundary conservation, which will benefit local and flagship wildlife in the PIT area.

Keywords
Camera trapping, connectivity, eastern Nepal, Panchthar-Ilam-Taplejung corridor, Red Panda, Tiger