A four-year-old tiger with a broken canine and cataract in its right eye, which killed three people in two weeks in Uttar Pradesh's south Kheri forest division in Mailani range near Lakhimpur Kheri was rescued in a daring operation on Wednesday- a day before he would have ideally been shot.
The 235 kilogram tiger who is now living in an enclosure in Lucknow Zoo after being declared unfit for release in the wild had been playing 'cat and mouse' with UP's forest department and team of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) since August 15.
According to forest officials the first kill was reported on August 19 when the tiger killed a farmer from Chedipur village. In fact the very next day the tiger struck again just 200 meters away from its first kill, this time killing a man and partially eating the body.
"With two deaths in two days the forest department was alarmed and an intensive combing operation was initiated from August 24 to search the tiger so that it could be tranquillised. Search operation was conducted by sitting on elephant backs and using quad-copters that was flown over forest fringes," shared Dr Mayukh Chatterjee, Head of WTI's Man-Animal conflict mitigation in UP praising the work of the forest department.
Even as attempts failed to tranquillise the tiger, the worst fears came true as the tiger killed yet another man on August 30 at Chedipur village causing a huge furore as the villagers began agitation and threatening the forest department. Left with no choice and under pressure the forest department sanctioned an order to shoot the tiger.
"Forest department and we just had one day to save the tiger from being shot as the shooters were on their way and hence on August 31 as soon as we received information that the tiger had dragged a buffalo calf towards the forest fringes we decided to take a chance and sought help from police to keep the angry villagers at bay," said Chatterjee.
As soon as the tiger was spotted by the forest department and WTI's team they fired the first dart around 2.42pm and gave another two booster dose. "Once we were certain that the tiger was tranquillised we immediately shifted it to a cage and it was sent to the Lucknow zoo as it was found that it had lost its right upper canine and was suffering from cataract too," informed Chatterjee adding that they felt that the tiger was not a man-eater as being impaired with one eye it would have seen any squatting man as a small prey.
Another reason believed that the tiger wasn't a man-eater was the fact that in between it kept killing livestocks regularly and even taking baits away.
Quad-copters used in search
According to forest officials the first kill was reported on August 19 when the tiger killed a farmer from Chedipur village. In fact the very next day the tiger struck again just 200 meters away from its first kill, this time killing a man and partially eating the body. "With two deaths in two days the forest department was alarmed and an intensive combing operation was initiated from August 24. Search operation was conducted by sitting on elephant backs and using quad-copters that was flown over forest fringes," shared Dr Mayukh Chatterjee
