Two tigers that killed at least three people in the past few weeks were on Tuesday captured near Nagarhole Wildlife Sanctuary on Tuesday by forest officials, people familiar with the development said.
A tigress, aged about 13 years, was caught at Nanachi gate close to the Nagarhole sanctuary — also known as Rajiv Gandhi National Park — while another female big cat, a year younger, was caught at DB Kuppe forest range, forest officials said.
The 13-year-old tigress had killed a 12-year-old tribal boy, Chetan, on Sunday, and an elderly man Raju (75) on Monday, a forest officials said. “Raju went to attend the cremation of Chetan, who was his relative,” said a senior forest official, requesting anonymity.
On 22 January, Manju (18) was killed by the other tigress.
Villagers living near the wildlife sanctuary have been living in fear in wake of these deaths.
The deaths of two relatives, within a span of 24 hours, enraged local residents, who staged a protest alleging negligence by officials in controlling man-animal conflict in the forest region.
Virajpet legislator KG Bopaiah and Madikeri MLA MP Appachu Ranjan raised the issue in the state assembly during the Budget Session on Monday and urged for the protection of humans from wild animals.
Amid spate in deaths due to attack by the big cats, the state wildlife warden ordered the capture of the tigers. The forest officials subsequently launched a combing operation on Monday morning to catch the tigresses by placing three cages and over 30 trap cameras. “We collected samples of pug marks of the tigers and succeeded in capturing them,” Nagarhole wildlife sanctuary director Harsha Chikkanaragunda said.
More than 150 forest personnel and officials took part in the operation, he said, adding four department elephants, including Dasara elephant Abhimanyu, were used in the combing operation.
Both the tigers were caught by using tranqulisers and will be shifted to an animal rescue center in Koorgalli near Mysuru, the park’s director said. “As tigers grow old, they, they won’t be able to hunt. Humans are the easy pray for tigers and they inevitably attack us,” he said.
In another incident, the carcass of a female tiger was found on Tuesday under the bridge in Gubbi taluk of Tumakuru district, where, according to forest records, there is no tiger.
“The carcass of a tigress aged about 5 years was found under a bridge in Kuntaramanahalli and Chikkahedigehalli,” Tumakuru deputy conservator of forests H Anupama said. The reason for its death is not known and the carcass had no wounds, she said. “We have conducted autopsy with the help of a veterinary doctor from Bhadra wildlife sanctuary and the exact reason will be known after receiving the autopsy report.”
“The three killings by tiger is just an accident. The tiger killed them when they came in it’s way,” wildlife conservationist KM Chinnappa.
“Every tiger has fixed its own territory, for just killing two humans we cannot call it as man eater since tiger did not go in search of human. In recent times, people venturing into forests increased , they send domestic animals into forest for grazing. If tiger become old ,it’s teeth loose sharpness. So it attacks humans.”