The forest department had been able to nail the location of the stray after one month when it first made its presence felt in Sitapur. The stray tiger has been located at the Siloli village at Unnao. Chief Conservator Awadh Division Eva Sharma confirmed that the stray tiger was in the thick forest patches of the village. A team from the Forest Department headed by tranqualizing expert Utkarsh Shukla has already reached the village where operations to cage the tiger will be carried out on Saturday.
Eva Sharma while talking to “The Pioneer” said that the forest staff got alert about the presence of the tiger on Thursday evening where they saw the pug marks of the beast. A small calf was left for the tiger overnight which it attacked and also ate partially.
“This village is over fifteen kilometers from the Alen Forests in Kanpur. Our staff got alert on Thursday evening and left a bait which the tiger attacked and ate partially. The pug marks from the bait back into the thickets confirm that it is the same tiger” said Sharma.
The Chief Conservator said that the staff would be carrying out operations on Saturday. “The operations of capturing the tiger would be carried out on Saturday. We have already sent the cages from the lucknow Zoo and two elephants will be arriving at the village from Dudhwa to help in the operations” said Sharma.
The Chief Conservator Awadh division said that they were confident that the tiger was localized in the area. “The tiger is localized and the very fact that it had a part of the bait means that it will return for the same bait. All efforts will be made to tranqualize it” she
added. On being asked if there was any chance of the tiger moving towards lucknow, the senior forest official said that there is no threat to the city. “We do not see it moving towards the city as of now and in the position in which it is currently. It appears to be
localized but one cannot predict the movement of the animal” she pointed out.
The stray tiger has been on the run since October 15 and it was first spotted at Sitapur. Since then the movements have been erratic although closer to the river. The Forest Department received several false alarms about the presence of the tiger in its continuous tracking.