6 tigers venture out of Pilibhit reserve, leave villagers on edge

LUCKNOW: In Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, a man-animal conflict rages on which the forest department blames on tigers living in sugarcane fields. The reserve and the adjoining areas have six tigers on the prowl at present. The felines have been spotted living either on the fringes or outside the forest for months. Man-animal conflict and accidental killings (humans dying in chance encounters with tigers) have become an everyday affair in the region.
Since 2016, at least eight tigers have ventured outside the forest. One of the man-mauling felines has changed location to Uttrakhand while another man-eating tiger was trapped from Mustafabad in Pilibhit and brought to Lucknow Zoo in February after it killed and also partially ate six men. The big cat, named Mustafa, is lodged at Kanpur zoo.
Six tigers, meanwhile, are still out of the forest as their pugmarks show. Even though the big cats have not made any compulsive killings, that does not rule out the threat.
The forest department, however, blames it on stray tigers who have taken the sugarcane belt outside the reserve as a habitat and are most likely to enter into a conflict with men.
The Pilibhit reserve has a horse-shoe shape with breadth varying from 2km to 14km which is a very short distance for the tigers to cover in one go. The 70,000 hectare reserve has five ranges, Barahi, Mala, Deoria, Mahof and Haripur, which are scattered patches of forest with villages in between.
Also, sugarcane belts are almost congruous with the buffer. “Sub-adults who are pushed out of the forest by dominant males take refuge in sugarcane belts and end up living there. But when the crop is cut, there is a chance encounter between feline and men,” said conservator, Bareilly, VK Singh.
Sugarcane, said Singh, is a perennial crop and is dense. Tigresses with cubs also make home in these belts as it keeps the cubs safe from the dominant males. “We have initiated dialogue with villagers and told them to inform us before they cut the crop in their fields so that we can send our staff to check for tigers inside the fields. If we are short of staff, we will send elephants,” said the official. Villagers have also been asked to play a ‘haanka’ (beating drums and dhols to produce loud noise to scare away the tiger). Sugar mills inform the crop growers a date for delivering their produce. Harvesting is mostly done four to five days ahead of the delivery date.
The conflict is dangerous for men and tigers both because when humans die in tiger attacks, it incites revenge killings. Since Pilibhit reserve is prone to poaching, tigers living out of the forest and in sugarcane fields are also vulnerable.