ISLAMABAD: A tiger prowling near villages in northern India killed its 10th person in six weeks, a day after eluding a trap set by hunters with a live calf as bait.
The female tiger is believed to have strayed from Jim Corbett National Park, India's oldest national park, which was established in 1936 to provide endangered Bengal tigers with safe territory, Times of India reported.
The big cat's latest victim was a 50-year-old man who was collecting firewood Sunday night in the forest outside Kalgarh village in Uttarakhand state, according to Saket Badola, deputy director of the national park.
The animal ate parts of the man's leg and abdomen before being scared away by villagers waving shovels and metal rods.
"There is thick forest in intervening area between Sunday's kill and the one that took place on Thursday," Bivash Pandav, a wildlife biologist with Wildlife Institute of India, told the paper.
"This forest is populated by tigers. It's unlikely, although not impossible, that the tigress would have traversed through territories of other tigers to get to the Kalagarh spot."
"We are not rushing to any conclusion," Corbett field director Samir Sinha said. "Our priority would be to establish the identity of the tiger.
The tiger has been on the prowl across an area spanning some 80 miles.
"The animal has started attacking humans because it is not getting its natural prey," said Rupek De, chief wildlife warden of Uttar Pradesh. "The tigress must be tired because it is not getting adequate rest."
He said the hunters hired to kill the animal were having trouble tracking it in dense forests. The team also was understaffed; only three of the six hunters hired for the job showed up for work, De said.
Comments
Comments are closed.