Four arrested for poisoning animals

UDHAGAMANDALAM: Four persons were arrested on Friday on charges of poisoning some animals, including a tiger some five months ago in Gudalur in Udhagamandalam district.

Police said a four-year old male tiger, two wild boars and a deer were found dead in the forest attached to a tea estate in Gudalur in January last.

Laboratory tests of the viscera revealed that the death of the animals was due to consumption of poison. Subsequent investigations revealed that the estate owner and a few contractors had kept poison to kill wildlife entering the banana fields and deer and boars died consuming it directly.

As far as Tiger's death was concerned, the animal had killed and eaten one of the boars, which had consumed the poison.
Further investigations led to the arrest of four persons, who had taken a portion of estate for banana farming and search was on for two others, they said.

The four were produced before Gudalur court, which remanded them to judicial custody. They were being brought to Coimbatore jail, police added.