Bhopal: A tiger cub that was translocated recently from Pench National Park following poisoning of a tigress and three cubs, died at its new habitat in Kanha National Park of Madhya Pradesh. The news came a day ahead of felicitation of directors of two state tiger reserves by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Third Asian Ministerial Meeting for Tiger Conservation on Tuesday. While officers of Satpura tiger reserve got the prestigious award for best rehabilitation of tribals outside protected areas, Kanha authorities bagged the prize for safest translocation of wild animals in mass.
Population of big cats in state has unexpectedly gone down by 22 since January 2015. Of these, 11 of them got killed in the last four months; either due to poison or electrocution by deadly electric wire traps laid for wild boars and deer. At least three were killed for sorcery where villagers were conned by fraudsters on pretext of 'raining wealth' from heaven. Poachers had gone to the extent of extracting oil from fat of poached tiger.
Latest loss was reported from Kanha National Park where one out of the two cubs, translocated from Pench National Park, died of septicaemia on Monday. Both were captured and shifted in a hurry after their mother and two siblings got killed in Pench.
"This cub had fatal wounds on its leg. It was weak and not taking food," Ravi Srivastava, state's chief wildlife warden told TOI. He said four villagers have been arrested for killing the tigress and three cubs.
"It's sure that they had poisoned a water body using some pesticide with intention to kill deers. But we are waiting for forensic report on the water and samples of hair recovered from tigers for further action," he said.
The wildlife chief also said that there was no lacuna on part of forest officials in any of these deaths.
Referring to controversies and allegations pertaining death of blue-eyed tiger at Bandhavgarh National Park (BNP), Srivastava said, "Some people said that an overdose of tranquilising shot killed the tiger. But I have closely examined the report. The animal had deep wounds around the neck with clear evidences of canine tooth. And stomach was empty."
RTI activist Ajay Dubey has demanded a CBI probe into every death.
"All unnatural death of tigers should be probed by the federal agency so that guilty people can be brought to book. NTCA says that tiger deaths that are not natural should be treated as a case of poaching," he said.
After a century of decline in tiger population, the most recent World Wildlife Fund (WWF) tiger data revealed existence of about 3,890 wild tigers in Asian region, compared to 3,200 in 2010. India (2,226), Russia (433), Nepal (198) and Bhutan (103) have maximum tigers left. Madhya Pradesh has more than 300 tigers.
