In one more chronicle of increasing man-animal conflict, a tiger has killed two persons in separate incidents in just three days at the fringes of Bandipur National Park in Mysore district. The Bandipur National Park has one of the highest numbers of tiger in the country and increasing conflict due to shrinking of forest space and habitat degradation has the direct bearing on the big cats.
According to forest officials, 35-year-old Cheluva, a member of Jenu Kuruba tribe was mauled to death by a tiger in Seegodu Haadi (hamlet) in HD Kote Talu on Friday. In another incident, a farmer was killed by a tiger on Wednesday on the outskirts of Bandipur National Park. He was killed in the same vicinity and forest officials think same tiger must have attacked both of them. According to HC Kantharaju, Director Bandipur Tiger Reserve, a tiger had attacked two persons in just three days and operations were on to capture the tiger.
He said, “All the people living in the hamlets on the fringes of the forests are being told not to venture too close to the tiger reserve till the animal was captured. We are stepping up security in the vicinity and plan to tranquilize the tiger and capture it.
According to Kantharaju, four tamed elephants from Bandipur have been brought to Seegodu to capture the tiger.
“The elephants are searching the tiger, we are planning to capture the tiger and plans are on to shift it to Bannerghatta,” said Kantharaj. Senior forest department staff and veterinarians are also being deployed to participate in the operations.
It is now being suspected that the tiger, which has claimed two lives so far, was either too old to hunt or has been injured in a territorial fight with another dominant male. Hence the tiger could repeatedly be
straying into human space to prey on domestic cattle and in the process has killed the two people.
“Our staff visited the village and identified the pug marks. A claw was embedded in the victim’s scalp... The animal is definitely a tiger,” Kantharaj said. The tiger did not bite the farmer but took a swipe at him with its forearm, in what is suspected to be a panic attack in self-defence. Basavaraju died of the injuries sustained in the process, he added.
“This is not only a rare case of a tiger killing a human being but also the first human casualty in the man-animal conflict reported from Bandipur this year (2013-14),” Kantharaj said.