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Reintroduced Gaur Explored for 90–200 Days Before Settling in Sanjay Tiger Reserve

Wild gaur herd standing in forest in Maharashtra, India
Conservation · Reintroductions & translocations

Reintroduced gaur (Bos gaurus gaurus) in Sanjay Tiger Reserve in central India spent between 90 and 200 days exploring the landscape before their space use stabilised. A preprint posted on 17 March 2026 analysed telemetry data from seven animals to separate this exploratory period from the later post-settlement phase.

The monitored gaur used large and highly variable areas during exploration, ranging from 33 to 440 km². All seven subsequently showed more stable space use and strong site fidelity. They were part of a reintroduction in which 50 gaur — 38 females and 12 males — were moved from Kanha (34 animals) and Satpura (16) tiger reserves in three batches during June 2023 and April 2024. Before release into open forest, the animals spent an average of 35 days (range 23–52) in a 30-hectare soft-release enclosure, allowing them to acclimatise locally before full release. Fourteen animals received telemetry collars, but the analysis used the seven — five females and two males — with at least one year of post-release data.

Habitat selection changed after settlement

Habitat selection also changed between the two phases. While exploring, the gaur used the landscape broadly but selected forested areas and higher elevations and strongly avoided human settlements and agricultural land. After settlement, selection became more concentrated on dense and moderately dense forest, rugged terrain and areas closer to rivers, while avoidance of human-modified areas remained consistent.

The authors interpret the prolonged exploratory phase as adaptive landscape learning rather than a sign that the animals had failed to settle. Using the study’s home-range estimates, five of the seven animals had smaller ranges after settlement, while two had larger ones; the changes did not follow a consistent direction. Settlement was therefore expressed most consistently as stabilised space use and strong site fidelity rather than as a uniform contraction of home-range size. The authors argue that combining early exploration with later space use can inflate estimates of spatial requirements and obscure the habitat preferences that emerge after establishment.

Sources and image credit

  1. Bhandari, B., Vishwakarma, R., Gorati, A. K., Sengar, A., Gupta, N., Tamilarasan, R. K., Om, H., Dubey, A. K., Krishnamoorthy, L., Sen, S., Habib, B., & Nigam, P. (2026). Post-release movement and habitat selection of reintroduced gaur (Bos gaurus gaurus) during exploration and post-settlement in central India [Preprint]. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8752162/v1Preprint posted 17 March 2026. Telemetry data from seven reintroduced gaur in Sanjay Tiger Reserve were used to distinguish exploratory from post-settlement movement and habitat selection.

Image: Jenis Patel — wild gaur (Bos gaurus) in Maharashtra, India, photographed 25 December 2013; Wikimedia Commons; cropped to 16:9; representative Indian species image, not one of the reintroduced animals in Sanjay Tiger Reserve · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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