Nagpur: One more tiger poached; canine, whiskers missing

NAGPUR: A tiger was poached on Thursday as it was found with its claws, canines and whiskers missing. The incident took place in Arjuni Morgaon range of Gondia in the Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR) landscape.
This is the third tiger death in the last 13 days. On January 3, a young tigress was electrocuted in Bhadravati (Chandrapur) and another died in an alleged territorial fight in the Porla range in Gadchiroli two days later.
The tiger carcass was noticed around 9 am. On Thursday morning forest staff learned about the death from villagers. The carcass was 500 metres away from agriculture fields and indications are that it was killed elsewhere and dumped on the forest land, according to sources.
Forest guard RD Rane and others found that the upper canines and whiskers of the animal were missing. An attempt was also made by the poachers to chop one of the paws.
Even as officials including NNTR field director RM Ramanujam, Gondia deputy conservator (DyCF) Kulraj Singh, honorary wildlife wardens Sawan Bahekar and Mukund Dhurve reached the spot, veterinarians were missing despite being repeatedly called. Hence, post-mortem could not be conducted.
“The carcass has been kept at the same spot and the post-mortem will be done on Friday. Only one local livestock development officer was present and he refused to conduct the post-mortem as two more were needed as per protocol. The veterinarians arrived at 4.30 pm. As they wouldn’t have completed the task before darkfall, we decided to defer the post-mortem,” said Ramanujam.
Ramanujam said that the five-year-old tiger seems to have been electrocuted first and later attempts were made to remove its body parts. RFO BT Durge is investigating.
It was feared that the tiger must be from Navegaon National Park but it turned out to be an unrecorded one moving along the Wadsa-Navegaon corridor. Sources from the spot said they heard tiger roars by evening indicating there may be a female in the same area. “There were pugmarks near the carcass of male tigers,” they said.
The incident occurred days after chief minister Uddhav Thackeray addressed senior police and forest officials and state wildlife board members asking them to pull their socks and intensify joint patrolling.