The poisoning could be intentional or unintentional, says a senior forest official
While Maharashtra exults over the rise in the number of tigers to 312 from the previous 190, the forest department has been served another rude wake up call with a young tigress found dead of suspected poisoning in Chandrapur. Forest officials said the site of the death, in cotton fields, from where the nearest forests in Maharashtra and Telangana are around 6 km and 10 km away, reveal that the tigress had strayed from a saturated habitat into human habitation, which could have led to man-animal conflict.
On Saturday evening, an around three to four-year-old tiger carcass was found in a cotton field at Gondpimpri in Chandrapur district. "The post-mortem revealed that prima facie, the cause of death is poisoning. A wild boar carcass was found nearby. The poisoning could be intentional or unintentional," said a senior forest official.
He added that the tiger was found dead in a cotton field, where pesticides had been sprayed. "It is possible that the pesticide may have flown with the water run-off after the rains as we found some water puddles nearby. This may have poisoned the carcass. However, the pieces of meat recovered from the tiger's intestines will be sent to the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL) at Nagpur for toxicology and histopathology analysis," the official said.
This takes the number of tiger mortalities in Maharashtra to 12. This year's toll includes the poisoning of a female and her two sub-adult cubs at Bramhapuri in Chandrapur, and two cases of poaching, at the Tipeshwar wildlife sanctuary (March 16), and the Tadoba Andhari tiger reserve (April 13) (one each).
The mortality figure in 2018 was 20, marginally down from 21 in 2017. The numbers were 15 in 2016, 12 in 2015, seven in 2014 and 10 in 2013.
The Central Chanda forest division under the Chandrapur territorial circle, where the dead tigress was found, has around 16 tigers. The area lies in proximity to the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) and the Bramhapuri forest division, which have around 85-90 and 40 tigers each. The landscape is saturated with this apex carnivores, bringing them into conflict with humans.
The official said they would match the stripe patterns of the tigers in their database to gauge if the tigress was from the area. If the stripes do not match, there is a chance that she may have migrated from neigbuoring Telangana.
"Another worrying aspect was the presence of the tiger in an area, which is around 6 km and 10 km respectively from the nearest forested patch in Maharashtra and Telangana. The landscape is fragmented with human habitation, and the tigress would have been able to hide in cotton fields, eventually bringing her into conflict with people," he added.
Maharashtra has six tiger reserves. The 2014 tiger census said India has 2,226 tigers, up from 1,706 in 2010 with Maharashtra having around 190 such big cats, more than the figure of 169 in 2010. The 2018 tiger census has estimated 312 tigers in the state, while the figure for India is 2,967 (estimated range of 2,603- 3,346).
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