Madhya Pradesh loses six tigers in eight months; three in Pench reserve

BHOPAL: A decomposed carcass of an adult tiger was found in Gumtara range of the Pench Tiger Reserve in Seoni district, Madhya Pradesh on Sunday during a routine patrolling by forest officials.

While officials concerned could not be contacted, insiders say that the tiger has been poisoned to death.

Autopsy would be conducted as per guidelines of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) guidelines, officials at the forest headquarters in Bhopal told TOI. Cause of its death has not been ascertained yet. "Just to rule out suspicion of poison we have collected viscera samples for forensic examination," said the officer.

This is second such case reported from the protected area.

Earlier a male tiger cub was found dead at Kurai range on August 9. Pointing out injury marks on its body, forest officials had said that it was killed in a fight over territorial supremacy. However, finding of its investigation report was never revealed.

As per the last census there are around 50 tigers in the Kanha-Pench reserves.

Noteworthy that Madhya Pradesh has lost six of its tigers in the last eight months, and all of them had met unnatural deaths.

On January 9, an adult tiger got killed while brushing against electric fence set up by farmers in Chhindwara district.

This incident was reported from district's Saakh village - located in a territorial forest area close to Pench Tiger Reserve.

A 23-year-old youth identified as Jitendra alias Jaggu was arrested by the forest officials after the matter surfaced.

Four other farmers have been made accused in the case, and they are at large. After initial investigations forest officials have ruled out any poaching attempt in this case.

They said the tiger got killed due to the electric fences installed by locals to protect their crops from wild boars that often stray into their fields causing a huge damage.

Experts say most of the tiger deaths in MP are either due to electric fences set up by farmers, or wire traps laid by poachers and in some of the cases they got killed eating poisoned kills.