LUCKNOW: Exploring wild expanses on will is a thing of past for the aberrant tiger of Pilibhit. The shrunken enclosure in zoo hospital will be a reality for the sub-adult wild tiger for the next few days. The forest department is still to decide about its future.
The aberrant tiger of Pilibhit which was tranquillised in Farrukhabad was relocated to Lucknow zoo on Friday. The tiger was brought to zoo in the morning and was put under quarantine. The big cat will have its days of seclusion, confinement and under-observation till the forest department decides about its future abode.
"It has killed and eaten human beings and so we can't release it in the wild without considering lot of factors," said BK Patnaik, Chief Wildlife Warden (CWW), UP. Will it be kept in zoo or released in the wild will be decided by the department soon. UP (terai) landscape might make it difficult releasing the tiger in the wild here but it could be released in the forest of any other state, said the CWW. This, of course, will be done after National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) gives its approval.
The tiger was tranquillised on Thursday by a team of forest officials and Wildlife Trust of India(WTI) while it stayed hidden in an isolated patch of `Prosopis juliflora' vegetation in Nagla Hira Singh village, Farrukhabad forest division. It was darted thrice. There was a huge crowd around its hide-out pelting the tiger with stones. Consequently, several people were injured and one was severely mauled, said WTI release.
The tiger was declared `dangerous' to humans after it killed and partially ate eight human beings between May 3 and August 26. It had killed six humans in Deoria range of Pilibhit forest division and two men in Khutar range of Shahjahanpur forest division. It had moved through Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, South Kheri and Hardoi before it was tranquillised in Farrukhabad. It took 80 days of monitoring and tracking to trap the tiger.
"Camera traps of the tiger have helped a lot, we got the last one on August 13," said Milind Pariwakam, WTI biologist. The stripes (of tigers clicked) were matched to confirm it was the same tiger which had been killing humans.
The tiger was not declared man-eater on the ground that it never killed a human outside forest area. In other words, it was not an obligate man-eater. It had killed six humans over a period of 100 days. In three instances it did not eat at all. In other instances, it ate about 50% of human flesh.
The tiger had also killed and eaten its natural prey. It had killed blue bulls and domestic cattle in between. The fact that it has killed a full-grown blue bull shows it is a healthy tiger capable of hunting. The CWW had issued the orders to tranquillise and trap the tiger in August. "It has not killed any man after August 26," said the CWW. The tiger shows no external signs of any deformity or disease. It is a healthy sub-adult tiger. "The tiger will be under observation and this will help to know its behaviour and health conditions closely," said Renu Singh, zoo director.
Darting large carnivores in wild by tracking and confining is a difficult task, and even more so in human-dominated landscapes. "It was becoming increasingly difficult to capture it as it was getting more wary with every attempt", said PP Singh, DFO, Shahjahanpur. Over the next few days, WTI veterinarian Mushtaq Ahmed will continue post-capture observation on the tiger, its behaviour and health.
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