A tigress flies home: Buxa Tiger Reserve gets its first tiger since 2018

T138 is a three-year-old Royal Bengal tigress, and she just made history. Airlifted on September 30 from Bihar's Valmiki Tiger Reserve — from Gorakhpur airport to Hasimara Air Force Station aboard an Indian Air Force MI-17 helicopter, in an automatic cage with full medical support — she was examined for over an hour by two wildlife doctors before being driven into Buxa. On October 2 she stepped into the reserve's core zone: the first tiger reintroduction in West Bengal, and the first time Buxa has held a tiger since the 2018 census confirmed the reserve was completely tigerless. Six more tigers are planned over the next two years. An apex predator, flown in like precious cargo, walking back into a forest that had forgotten her kind.