Seoni: Tigress T4 aka Patdev at Madhya Pradesh's Pench Tiger Reserve gave birth to four more cubs. This has taken her offspring tally to 20. She has given birth to five litters since 2014.
On Monday, some officials and visitors were on a safari when they spotted the mama tigress with four new cubs. They appeared to be about two months old. This is the first time she was seen with four cubs, said Reserve's deputy director Rajneesh Singh. T4 was born in 2010 and is about 12 years old. Two of her cubs in the first litter died.
Officials said that Patdev is the daughter of Collarwali known as supermom. She gave birth to 29 cubs in the span of 11 years (between 2008 and 2018). She died in June 2022 at the age of 17.
Madhya Pradesh has the most number of tigers according to the 2018 tiger census. It has 526 big cats and is followed by Karnataka (524) and Uttarakhand (442). In 2006, India had only 1,411 tigers. By 2018, the population grew to 2,967.