Madhya Pradesh loses 22 tigers in 16 months, last one to septicaemia

BHOPAL: As environmentalists across the world are in high spirits for increase of wild tigers first time in 100 years, the population graph of big cats in Madhya Pradesh, a major contributor, has unexpectedly gone down by 22 since January 2015.

Eleven of them got killed in the last four months; either due to poison and or deadly electric wire traps laid for wild boars and deer. At least three were killed for sorcery where villagers were lured by cons on pretext of 'raining wealth' from the sky. Poachers had gone to the extent of extracting oil from fat of poached tiger.

Latest loss was reported from Kanha National Park where one out of the two cubs, translocated from Pench National Park, died of septicaemia on Monday. Both were captured and shifted in a hurry after their mother and two siblings got killed in Pench consuming a poisoned kill.


"This cub was in a bad shape with fatal wounds on its leg. It was weak and was not taking food," Ravi Srivastava, state's chief wildlife warden told TOI. He said four villagers have been arrested for killing the tigress and three cubs.

"It's sure that they had poisoned a water body using some pesticide with intention to kill deers. But we are waiting for forensic report on the water and samples of hair recovered from tigers for further action," he said.

The wildlife chief also said that there was no lacuna on part of forest officials in any of these deaths.

Referring to controversies and allegations pertaining death of Blue-eyed tiger at Bandhavgarh national park (BNP) Srivastava said, "Some people said that an overdose of tranquilising shot killed the tiger. But, I have closely examined the report. It had deep wounds around the neck with clear evidences of canine tooth. And stomach was empty."

RTI activist Ajay Dubey has demanded a CBI probe into each and every death. "All unnatural death of tigers should be probed by the federal agency so that guilty people can be brought to book. NTCA says that tiger deaths that are not natural should be treated as a case of poaching," he said.

After a century of decline, the most recent World Wildlife Fund (WWF) tiger data revealed existence of about 3,890 wild tigers in Asian region, compared to 3,200 in 2010. It includes India (2,226), Russia (433), Nepal (198) and Bhutan (103). Madhya Pradesh has a contribution of more than 300 tigers to this count.

Incidentally, directors of two state tiger reserves were facilitated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the three-day Third Asian Ministerial Meeting for Tiger Conservation held in Delhi inaugurated on Tuesday.

While officers of Satpura tiger reserve got the prestigious award for best rehabilitation of tribals outside protected areas, the Kanha authorities have bagged the prize for safest translocation of wild animals in mass.