Football-sized hairball found in dead Pench tiger

BHOPAL: A football-sized hairball was found inside the abdomen of a 10-year-old tiger that died of a mysterious viral infection inside Pench Tiger Reserve in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday morning.


Tiger T-21 was found in a semi-conscious state near a waterbody at Karmajhiri Range by a patrolling squad. They monitored its activity for a few hours, and alerted their superiors that it needed medical attention.


It lay in the water, barely moving. It didn’t even react when foresters came within 15 feet of it on the back of elephants. Wildlife veterinarian Dr Akhilesh Mishra and field director Vikram Singh Parihar administered medicine through a dart on April 3, but its condition kept worsening.

A forest team kept watch all night, hoping for signs of recovery. But it slowly sank into its paws and died at 8.55am.
Parihar told TOI that they can ascertain cause of death only after examining the viscera. But forensic samples could not be sent to the lab because of the coronavirus lockdown.

During postmortem, Dr Mishra found a huge hairball inside its stomach and found its lungs were completely damaged. All its body parts were intact, and no external or internal injury was found. The carcass was disposed as per NTCA’s protocol.

Officials have ruled out poisoning or canine distemper virus (CDV), which some officials were fearing, following the suspicious deaths of a wild dog and its six puppies in Kothar Beat in Dobri of Pench Tiger Reserve earlier this week. It’s not yet known why they died. Their samples have also been preserved for laboratory testing. “No, it is not CDV,” Parihar told TOI.