A tourist’s version of feeble roar in National Park Betla resurrects the ghost of the tigress while IG NTCA ( inspector general national tiger conservation authority ) Assam region under which comes Jharkhand’s Palamu tiger reserve W Longvah is to reach National Park Betla soon.
Giving this information DS Srivastava secretary of Nature Conservation Society said, “IG NTCA Longvah telephoned me and said he would be very soon coming over to National Park Betla. I understand the death of a tigress there in the park is the prime reason of the IG to come over here but it is now almost a month the big cat died.”
The tigress was found dead near road number 2 of this park on the night of February 15, which was cremated on February 16 after a due and elaborate postmortem of the corpse carried out by a team of 5 vet doctors. Srivastava said, “I would urge IG Longvah to speak to the tourist Saibal Roy who has claimed to have heard the sigh and moaning of a tiger or tigress near road number 2 of the park in the evening say between 5 to 5.10 PM on February 15 in the evening and the same night after hours of sighing she was found dead.” The Pioneer reached the Debjani hotel in Betla where Saibal Roy the tourist had checked in on February 15 with six others also.
Speaking to the Pioneer Saibal Roy the tourist said on phone, “ I along with my fellow tourists was in a jeep near road number 2 of the park when I heard a feeble roar of a tiger or tigress, which appeared to be in utter distress and discomfort.” Roy said he was in Betla on February 15 and three days later February 18 he and his team moved out from the PTR. Roy said he is a wildlife photographer and spends time in the jungles and as such knows the sound/voice of wildlife more.He further said, “We stopped there. We found a herd of bison there in utter confusion. The bison gets into confusion when they see any tiger or tigress. Here the herd of the bison was behaving the same way.”Asked if he or any of his fellow tourists saw the tigress/ tiger Roy said “No, none of us.”
The driver Najibullah said, “ When Roy Saheb and his team stopped near the site where was coming the roar in distress the monkeys, the deer and the peacocks were sending out alarm signals a feature these animals do when a tiger or a tigress is around.”
Srivastava here raised a pointer, “A tourist heard the feeble roar in the evening of February 15 between 5 to 5.10 PM but where the tiger trackers, tiger strike force, trackers , forest guards etc were in the park as none of them heard this roar at all but discovered the wild life only dead and kept guarding the dead.”
Srivastava further lobbed a query, “Was this tigress properly and adequately trailed or monitored by the ground staff or was she left to fend for herself? How is it that no ground staff had any inkling of this tigress in distress while a tourist of Kolkata found and claimed he heard roars, which were of distress and discomfort?”
The driver told, There was a talk doing the rounds here that there is a tigress here in the park that is pregnant and so Roy ji and other tourists. thought the distress roar is related to delivery of litter of cubs but there was no such thing at all.
A noted vet doctor Ajay who was one of the 5 doctors who had conducted the post mortem of the tigress had said, “There was no question of this tigress ever remaining any pregnant.”
He said “I would exhort IG NTCA Longvah to take the versions of the tourist Roy as this will expose the gap between the PTR’s official report & ground report.”