Wildlife authorities in trouble over slain tiger

Nagpur, Dec 3 - Wildlife authorities are finding themselves caught in an intricate web of doubts after they shot down a supposedly man-eating tiger outside Taboda-Andhari Tiger Reserve last week.

Apparently, the people on the outskirts of the tiger reserve, about 170 km from here, under whose pressure the animal was killed Friday, are now saying the slain beast was quite different from the one that was rampaging their villages.

Several wildlife experts have been saying that the wildlife personnel ought to have tranquillised the tiger, which killed four people in two months, rather than rushing to kill it.

Police commandos led by a range forest officer and two guards spotted the tiger Friday morning near the carcass of a bullock it had supposedly preyed upon the previous evening and gunned it down.

The wildlife department's action brought cheer to the villagers who were extremely angry ever since Nov 28 when the tiger tore apart a youth in his farm.

But doubts soon started being raised on whether the beast that killed the bullock Thursday and took four human lives in the last two months was the same that was shot dead.

Rishikesh Ranjan, the Brahmapuri divisional forest officer, insists it is. 'We thought it was a tigress; it turns out to be a tiger, but it is the same one. We have finished it. You can relax now,' he told the villagers.

To Ranjan's disappointment, report of the tiger's post mortem revealed Saturday that the meat in its abdomen was that of a pig, with no trace of bullock's or human's flesh that the man-eater was believed to have consumed in the previous three days.

Ranjan, however, told IANS that the meat sample has been sent to the forensic lab in Nagpur Monday for further confirmation.

'Apart from that, the tiger's blood samples are being sent to Dehradun's Wildlife Institute of India for DNA tests that would reveal its lineage,' he added.

Some villagers who had seen the rampaging tigress said it was much bigger in size and had a limp in one of its legs. The slain tiger had no previous injury on its body. Experts said it is generally a wounded or aged tiger incapable of killing its natural prey that turns into a man-eater.

Referring to the weight (147 kg), length (8 feet, 5 inches) and the skull diameter (70 cm) of the killed tiger, wildlife expert Chandrakant Deshmukh surmised the beast's age could at the most be three and a half years.

(c) Indo-Asian News Service

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