A tigress with three cubs was spotted in the forests of Zhemgang, Bhutan after seven years. The camera traps had spotted the tigress not seen since 2014 with her three cubs.

The Zhemgang Forest Division office also confirmed that another tigress with three more cubs was seen thriving in the forests of Zhemgang, said a report by the Bhutan Broadcasting Service.

The tigress code-named BTN-34, was last captured on the camera traps in 2014. There were no sights of BTN-34 since then. But recently, the footages retrieved from the camera traps set up in the Zhemgang Forest Divisional territory captured the same tigress with three healthy cubs. The division office had installed the camera traps in April last year.

Bhutan is on track to contribute to the global ambition of doubling the tiger population by next year.

Phub Dorji, a forestry officer of Zhemgang Forestry Division said that the breeding habitat of a tigress needs to fulfil a lot of ecological criteria.

He added that they found two mother tigress and both of them have three cubs each. They have done a lot of conservation work and are hoping that the tiger population would increase.

If the number of wild pigs and deer’s increase, it would create an imbalance in the ecosystem. In the wild, the presence of a tiger will keep the population of other wild animals down the food chain in check, added Phub Dorji.