The ghost of the dead tigress still haunts the Palamu Tiger Reserve officials (PTR) in Betla. Secretary of the Nature Conservation Society DS Srivastava, who by virtue of his being secretary of the NGO Nature Conservation Society is on the panel of the Jharkhand State Wild Life Board said, “I fail to understand as to what stopped chief wildlife warden Jharkhand PK Verma to come rushing in the National Park Betla in the wake of this death of the tigress.”
“It is Tuesday afternoon and the tigress was found lying dead on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday as on Sunday. The tigress was cremated after all post death protocol observed in all seriousness.” said Srivastava. Srivastava said, “The chief wild life warden has not come here, which goes to suggest that even the death of a tigress has not caused any stir in the high echelon of the forest environment & climate change department in the State.”
Asked whether he was in the directorate tiger project Daltonganj today and what transpired between the tiger project field director and him to which he said, “Yes, I was there and I had a talk with the field director YK Das and when I raised this issue as to what made chief wild life warden not inspecting the place and getting abreast of the entire details related from the first sighting of the tigress gone dead to its cremation to which Das told me that he (Das) is here as his representative.”
Ranger Betla Prem Prasad has categorically said that the tigress died due to the fight she had with the bison as she was aged more than 16 years and her teeth power was also in great decay. Sources said the PTR officials must come out with every bit of the pre death, death and post death situations of the tigress to stem more such whispers.
Srivastava said, “The energy that PTR officials is pooling in right now is to prove that the construction of more than 90 towers built earlier in the core and the buffer divisions of this tiger reserve turned out to be too bad for the wild life here and the regime of the officials when these towers so came up be questioned, quizzed and then regime’s officials be dragged in this.”