Jorhat, Dec. 27: An alert has been sounded in Assam’s Orang National Park following the recovery of a Royal Bengal tiger carcass yesterday.
The post-mortem report indicates the tiger may have died of poisoning.
The viscera has been sent to the forensic laboratory in Guwahati for confirmation.
Park director S.K. Daila said the carcass of the five-year-old female tiger was recovered from a dense forest area near the Pachnoi river by forest guards.
“The carcass bore no injury marks and there was nothing unusual noticed at the location from where it was found,” he said.
The recovery of the carcass comes amid speculation that villagers residing near the periphery of the national park might have tried to poison the big cats in retaliation to the increasing tiger attacks on cattle.
Villages near Orang National Park have seen a rise in conflicts between Royal Bengal tigers and humans, with the big cats frequently straying out of the park and attacking cattle.
Tigers have killed more than 20 cattle heads in the past few months.
Daila said there has been an increase in tiger population at Orang and, therefore, big cats were frequently straying out of the park.
“The actual figure will be known only after a census but we have spotted two tiger cubs born a few months back,” he said.
The park official said, a week back, two tigers strayed out of the park and entered a human habitat and the forest staff had to fire in the air to chase the two tigers back inside the park.
The park authorities signed an MoU with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) recently to minimise the increasing incidents of conflicts between tigers and humans.
According to the MoU, to gain the confidence of the villagers, the WWF would pay interim relief to owners of cattle killed by tigers.
“We have also organised joint patrolling by villagers and forest guards in areas where there are frequent incidents of tigers killing cattle,” Daila said.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Leopard''s carcass found; poaching attempt suspected
Lakhimpur, Dec 27 (PTI) In a suspected case of poaching, the carcass of a young leopard was recovered from Kishunpur sanctuary in Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, a forest department official said here today.
The carcass of a four-year-old young male leopard was recovered late last evening in Ambargarh beat of the sanctuary, field director Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR) Shailesh Prasad said.
As the carcass was found entangled in dense shrubs and there were creepers all over it, initially it was presumed that the big cat died after getting caught in the shrubs.
However, the recovery of a metal wire from inside the creepers made the park authorities suspicious, Prasad said.
After the recovery of metal wires, which could not be sensed with metal detectors, the authorities are carrying out a probe from all angles, Prasad said after visiting the spot.
Deputy director of the park Sanjay Kumar Pathak said all vital organs of the body such as skin, jaw, paws, nails, etc.
were found intact and the carcass has been sent to Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly, for an autopsy to ascertain the exact cause of death.
Authorities fear that the leopard died due to a poaching attempt, as on July 31 poachers had attempted to kill a leopard with an iron trap.
However, the patrolling staff managed to prevent the endangered animal from being killed though it sustained some injuries in its foreleg, Pathak said.
He said some persons have been apprehended and raids were being carried on to nab the culprits.
The field staff in entire Dudhwa Tiger Reserve has been alerted to keep a close vigil on the movements of protected animals, Pathak said.
The carcass of a four-year-old young male leopard was recovered late last evening in Ambargarh beat of the sanctuary, field director Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR) Shailesh Prasad said.
As the carcass was found entangled in dense shrubs and there were creepers all over it, initially it was presumed that the big cat died after getting caught in the shrubs.
However, the recovery of a metal wire from inside the creepers made the park authorities suspicious, Prasad said.
After the recovery of metal wires, which could not be sensed with metal detectors, the authorities are carrying out a probe from all angles, Prasad said after visiting the spot.
Deputy director of the park Sanjay Kumar Pathak said all vital organs of the body such as skin, jaw, paws, nails, etc.
were found intact and the carcass has been sent to Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly, for an autopsy to ascertain the exact cause of death.
Authorities fear that the leopard died due to a poaching attempt, as on July 31 poachers had attempted to kill a leopard with an iron trap.
However, the patrolling staff managed to prevent the endangered animal from being killed though it sustained some injuries in its foreleg, Pathak said.
He said some persons have been apprehended and raids were being carried on to nab the culprits.
The field staff in entire Dudhwa Tiger Reserve has been alerted to keep a close vigil on the movements of protected animals, Pathak said.
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