NTCA rushes to probe tiger killing

The killing of a 10-year-old tiger by members of a special task force of the forest department in Wayanad district of Kerala has raised the hackles of green activists across the globe. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has rushed a team to the coffee plantation in Moolamkavu village to get a first-hand appraisal of the chain of events that led to his shooting. A member of the NTCA team pointed out that the forest department officials were under tremendous pressure from the local population to eliminate the tiger because it had turned into a cattle lifter. “Political parties entered the fray and local CPI(M) leaders rushed to the area to pledge their support to the public. This saw the Kerala chief minister Ooman Chandy make a special trip to Wayanad district where he promised the populace the local populace in a public meeting that he would ensure its ‘elimination’,” pointed out Tito Joseph, programme manager, heading the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) in Kerala. This emboldened the public to the extent that the order issued by the chief wildlife warden allowing for the tiger to be tranquillised was also shown to the large crowds and media crew that followed the task force as it moved through the forests in an attempt to tranquillise and relocate the tiger. “The forest officer who fired the tranquilliser shots did not give the tiger any time to get sedated. Rather, the tranquilliser shot was followed by a lethal shot that killed it,” Tito added. This killing was preceded by a similar killing of a tiger in the Kaziranga tiger sanctuary earlier this year when uncontrolled mobs followed a police and forest department team who were stalking another tiger-turned-cattle lifter. Here too, the mob put so much pressure on the forest authorities and police that a constable fired and killed the tiger. Green activists question why mobs are being allowed to enter tiger reserves and its adjacent areas. They also question why video teams were allowed to videograph the killing as though a documentary was being shot. Maneka Gandhi, BJP MP, and chairperson of People for Animals pointed out that since the tiger was not a man-eater, it should have been re-located and not killed.