Ahmedabad: After more than three decades, Gujarat has been formally reinstated as a tiger-present state for the 2026 census, following confirmed photographic evidence of a tiger in the Ratanmahal Wildlife Sanctuary in Dahod.

A camera-trap enumeration will now be carried out along the Gujarat–Madhya Pradesh border as part of the All-India Tiger Estimation (AITE) 2026, which began in Indore last week. Officials said the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has issued directions for tiger conservation measures in Ratanmahal, where a nearly four-year-old tiger has established territory.

The animal has been frequenting the Ratanmahal and Madhya Pradesh landscape since mid-February and has remained in the area, prompting continuous monitoring by state forest authorities.

Based on photographic records, NTCA has restored Gujarat to India’s tiger map and included it in the ongoing national census. The last tiger census in Gujarat in 1989 recorded only pugmarks, and the state was subsequently dropped from the 1992 enumeration and the list of tiger-range states.

With this confirmation from the NTCA, Gujarat now becomes the only state in the region to have three big cats, lion, tiger, and leopard. DeshGujarat.