More than two months after tigress Avni was shot, her on-the run male cub that “is doing fine” in the jungles of Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district of eastern Maharashtra.
Reports reaching the State headquarters from Yavatmal district on Friday said that the male cub was on Thursday sighted “hunting and eating a pony”. “The male cub is doing fine and healthy. We are in the process of trapping and rescuing it,” a senior state forest official said.
On 22 December, the female cub of Avni had been caught and sent to a huge enclosure in the Pench Tiger Reserve.
Avni, aged around 6 years, was being accompanied by her two cubs – both 10 month old ones, when she was shot by sharp shooter Asgar Ali, son of controversial sharp-shooter Nawab Shafath Ali Khan from Hyderabad, at compartment number 149 of Borati forest under the jurisdiction of the Ralegaon police station.
The two cubs had gone missing since the tigress was eliminated on the night of November 2.
The State forest department officials had launched its massive search to secure the two missing cubs.
The operation to secure two missing cubs is being overseen by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
A few weeks after their disappearance, both the cubs were trapped in cameras and spotted by forest guards.