Electric wire kills missing tiger’s son, three men arrested

Mumbai: Jai, a tiger, has been missing from Umred near Nagpur for more than a year, but his son Srinivas’s body was found in Nagbhid jungle in Chandrapur district on Thursday. The tiger died after coming in contact with an electric fence that a farmer had used to protect his crops from herbivores. This came to light after the tiger went off the radar a few days ago.

Srinivas was radio-collared on March 17, 2016 and his movements were being traced by satellite. However, on April 20 this year in Nagbhid, local officers and employees noticed he had been stationary and hence visited the area. It was then learnt that the tiger’s radio collar had fallen off. Forest officials then started their investigations in order to trace the wild cat. Finally, on April 27, the officials came across scat of a tiger in Koshuni village. After the area was thoroughly checked, a farmer, Mahadev Erpate, admitted that the tiger, on April 19, had died after coming in touch with the electric fenced wire surrounding his farm. After Erpate realised that the tiger had died due to the electric fence, he decided to bury the animal himself, fearing strict action from forest officials.

Thus, taking the help of his son, Erpate removed the radio collar from the animal and threw it near a highway.

When the forest officials started interrogating people about the animal, Erpate confessed. All the body parts of the animals were, however, found at the same place. All the further investigations will now be done by the Bhrahmapuri forest department.     

Shree Bhagwan, state principal chief conservator of forest, said, “The animal has been found intact. A post-mortem will be conducted after which necessary action against the farmer will be taken.”

Srinivas is the son of Jai, who has been missing since April 19 last year. The three-year-old Jai on September 2013 had travelled over 100 km to reach the Umred Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary in Nagpur district. A radio collar was fitted on the big cat in September 2010 after which the radio collar developed a snag. On April 18 2016 he went missing after being fitted with a new collar, which had stopped relaying signals.

Erpate, his son Uttam and their relative Shubham Uike were arrested at around 5.30 pm on Thursday.