Man-eater tigress, facing ‘shoot-to-kill’ order, electrocuted in Wardha

Mishra had issued the shooting orders for the tigress T27-C1, aged about two years, after she had killed two persons and injured one after her release in the Bor sanctuary. The tigress prior to being released in the sanctuary was captured from Bramhapuri in Chandrapur district, where she had killed two and injured four. A lot of public outcry in the Bramhapuri villages had actually led to a shoot order being issued by Mishra in June.

The same, however, was quashed by the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court that had ordered her capture by tranquillisation. The quashing order was on a petition by a tiger lover Jerryl Banait, who had contended that proper guidelines were not followed to declare the animal a man-eater. She was captured on July 8 by hired expert Nawab Shaukat Ali and was caged for a few days when activists and forest officials intensively discussed her fate and decided that she was fit to be released back in the wild. She was then released in Bor sanctuary on July 29, the World Tiger Day, after being radio-collared. Intensive 24×7 monitoring by multiple tracking teams was put in place to ensure that she stays in her natural habitat without any problematic interface with humans.

After about two months of harmless stay, she killed a farmer near Ashti village on September 19, followed by an injurious attack on another farmer on September 27 and then a fatal one on a woman near Shahapur village in Varud tahsil of Amravati on October 2.

On October 4, Mishra issued the second shoot order, again challenged by Banait. The HC bench comprising Justice Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Justice Swapna Joshi had directed to adduce sufficient evidence to conclude that the attacks were caused by the same tigress. Accordingly, Mishra revised the shoot order with more exhibits like GPS and VHF location of the tigress on the spots, panchnamas, photographs of the victims and results of the tiger census in the areas showing no other tiger’s presence.

The bench had then upheld the revised order on October 9 and accordingly tracking teams comprising forest staffers, Wildlife Institute of India experts (WII), sharpshooters Nawab Shaukat Ali and Waseem Jamshed, specifically sent by Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, had geared up for the endgame.

Banait, who was preparing to board a flight to Delhi to challenge the HC decision in Supreme Court through a Special Leave Petition (SLP), returned on hearing the news of the tigress’s death. He said, “I tried my level best to save the tigress but sadly she had to die like this. I will hold the whole manner in which her issue was handled responsible for her death.”

He asked : “The forest department needs to answer the question if it had found the tigress worth shooting dead for being a man-eater, why did they release it back in the wild? Either of the two decisions was right, both can’t be.” He added, “I had never pressed for her release in the wild and had no problem with her being caged for all her life. I only wanted the capital punishment to be converted into life imprisonment.”

However, Mishra, defending the decision said, “the tigress had never displayed a menacing behaviour towards human, except for last 15 odd days when the attacks happened. But only one of those on a farmer on September 27 was unprovoked. All these days she displayed human-shy behaviour and had almost settled down at three different places. Why she chose to walk out is something to be understood yet?”

“We had also issued shoot orders twice but they got either quashed or delayed through a judicial intervention. Such decisions cannot wait for implementation when the tigress is known to be shifting places continuously,” said Head of forest force Shri Bhagwan.

As reported earlier, the tigress after staying put in the Bor buffer area for many days had started moving out and had returned to the sanctuary again over the past 2-3 days after traversing a distance of over 500 kilometres. What has also caused flutter is the fact that the tigress died of electrocution despite huge monitoring effort by multiple teams on 24×7 basis. At any given time, three teams comprising twelve personnel were on the trot from different directions. The distance between them and the tigress varied between 50-300 metres.

It has also raised a question about the correctness of the decision to release her back into the wild: was it not wrong in hindsight to do it. Now that she has killed two and injured one despite such huge monitoring, said Kishore Rithe, a former member of National Board for Wildlife and Chief of wildlife NGO Satpuda Foundation. He as a member of the special committee set up to decide the tigress’s fate after capture had heavily stressed on the need to release her in the wild: “Her unfortunate electrocution today is no reason to question her release in the wild. It was an experiment and it was necessary to do such experiments and learn from them in the context of man-tiger conflict. You can’t just shoot every tiger in conflict with humans. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed and the same was done in this case. The fact that she had stayed in Bor peacefully for about two months showed that she was coming to terms with her natural life in wilderness. So, what caused her to move out? This question needs to be answered before we accuse her of being a man-eater.”

Rithe refused to elaborate but there are allegations that the forest staff in the Territorial area (non-wildlife) had actually ensured the tigress’s exit from the area to avoid possible complications. A senior forest official, Mishra said, “I also heard it but these are only rumours. The Territorial staff worked very sincerely.”

Former PCCF (Wildlife) B Majumdar, on whose order a problem tiger in the Talodhi range of Chandrapur district was shot dead in 2007, had filed an intervention petition in the current HC case supporting the October 4 shoot order by Mishra. He, however, blames the act of releasing the tigress in the wild again for the eventual tragedy. “I continue to maintain that the decision of the CWLW to release the tigress on 22nd July based on rather ambivalent recommendations/observations of the committee as per its report dated 14th July, was patently wrong. With its past history of human attacks, the CWLW, by following the SOP (Std Operating Procedures) of NTCA or otherwise clearly had no choice but to try to trap the animal within as short a time as possible, failing which to have it shot, as the probability of further killings could not be ruled out. The subsequent death of two persons from the animal’s attack bears this out,” he said.

The tigress’s electrocution has also flagged another important issue says Nitin Desai, Central India Director of Wildlife Protection Society of India, “If this could happen to a collared animal that was monitored 24×7 hours what is the fate of other wild animals. Electrocution by poachers and illegal power fences by farmers remain the biggest challenges before wildlife protection. I am afraid such incidents might go up given the deficit monsoon and poor crops. More and more farmers would resort to illegal power fences to save whatever crops they have. This calls for drastic measures on the ground along with all possible technological interventions.”

Jerryl Banait said, “Last year radio-collared iconic tiger Jai disappeared and is believed dead. This year his cub Srinivas who was also radio-collared was found electrocuted. And now T27-C1 has also met the same fate. If this is the level of protection for radio-collared tigers, just imagine what must be happening to the several other tigers roaming human-dominated landscapes.”

Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar’s reaction 

Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “I was of the opinion that the tigress should have been kept in open enclosure at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, in Mumbai. But we had to release it in the wild as per HC directive.” When pointed out that the decision to release the tigress was actually taken by a committee set up by PCCF Mishra and the HC had only quashed the shoot order and directed the tigress’ to be captured alive, Mungantiwar maintained, “but that was as per the HC directive only. The PCCF had himself told me that. You can check with him.”

“One thing is clear, you can’t save wildlife without the animals getting sympathy of the people living in the areas bearing tigers. On one side there is people’s anger and other side there is NGO concern. Hence, we must take all sides into consideration. We can’t afford to create antipathy for all other tigers by saving one problem tiger. I am going to direct my officers now to create a SOP that will eliminate the need for any judicial intervention in such matters,” he said.