After courting controversy over the chain link fencing of its boundary, Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh is again back in the news. Two of its sub-adult male tigers have been captured and send to Van Vihar in Bhopal after being declared man-eaters.
This happened after a forest guard was killed in a tiger attack last week and its half eaten torso and limbs were found near Hardia forest camp in Tala range of the reserve. Earlier two persons were killed but their bodies were not preyed upon by the big cats.
The two brother sub-adult tigers branded as “man-eaters” and sent to the zoo are aged about two years five months. They were born to a tigress named “Mirchahani” in the reserve in 2009. Generally, tigress keeps her cubs with her for one and a half years, after which they are left to fend for themselves. These cubs too were learning to hunt, sources said.
Justifying his action, Field Director CK Patil said it was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. “Had the two sub-adults tigers not been sent to zoo, they could have been killed by the local villagers,” he said.
Tiger expert Belinda Wright pointed to the root cause behind the incident. “It is the absurdity of chain link fencing round the reserve that is intensifying man-tiger conflict. It has severely restricted the free passage of big cats and other wild animals within the reserve. The limited space in this high tiger density area is compelling the big cats, particularly the sub-adults to move out and venture into surrounding village areas, she said.
The Pioneer had earlier reported that the Bandhavgarh reserve was slowly getting converted into a zoo with a 108 sq km area enclosed by chain links or iron mesh fencing, which in the long run would aggravate man animal conflicts. All the three kills during the last three months had occurred outside the fencing area.
Wildlife experts pointed out that the reserve houses 60 tigers. “With increasing pressure, the cub tigers have no choice but to move out, and once they are outside the reserve territory can the management simply shrug off its responsibility and send it packing to a zoo?” they asked.
They further added that a tiger is sent to the zoo, when it is unable to hunt for itself but in this case both of them were juveniles. Cramming such animals into a zoo for the rest of their lives is a big blow to wildlife conservation, they claimed.
The experts also argued that there was no proper tracking to conclusively establish which tigers had actually killed and eaten the forest guard. If the forest department is to be believed that the same trapped tigers had eaten the forest guard, then why did they leave untouched the previous two kills? Experts also pointed out that as per guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority a tiger is declared a man-eater only when it kills and preys upon at least three persons.
Belinda further pointed to the heavy presence of forest personnel within the reserve.
“There are forest guards to protect water holes, for grassland management etc making them susceptible to attacks,” she pointed out.
Raghu Chundawat, a wildlife scientist, felt “there should be a proper planning on how to handle such wild caught animals — sending them to a zoo is not the solution”. The growing problem of shrinking tiger habitat vis-a-vis increasing tiger population across the country requires an immediate policy decision, and the reserve management cannot back out from its responsibility, he felt.
Pointing to the grave situation, which had emerged after the forest guard’s killing, the field director regretted that he had no choice. “The assistant field director, including the range assistant and the forest guard, were assaulted by villagers after the third killing and had to be hospitalised. They faced the wrath of the villagers sympathetic to tigers”, he said.
When questioned on the ultimate efficacy of chain link fencing, Patil pointed out that there are 80 surrounding villages with 30,000 population and 50,000 cattle. Further, 4000 pattas (forest land deeds) have already been distributed in the district. In such a situation, how else can we keep away the growing human pressure from the reserve, he shot back.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/354268/Chain-link-fencing-pushes-Bandhavgarh-tigers-to-edge.html
