A day after four tiger cubs died, reportedly due to starvation, in a forest in Chandrapur district, the Maharashtra government has decided to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising the C
A day after four tiger cubs died, reportedly due to starvation, in a forest in Chandrapur district, the Maharashtra government has decided to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and forest department officials to probe the disappearance of the cubs’ mother.
“The mother of these 2-3-week-old cubs suddenly disappeared due to which the cubs had not been fed for the last three days. “The questions before us now are: what happened to their mother, whether poachers had hunted the tigress or some local farmer had done mischief’. There are other possibilities like the tigress dying of thirst or falling into a well,” state forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said.
“We have, thus, decided to form a SIT, comprising officials from the CBI and the forest department to probe into the disappearance of the tigress. There are officials in the CBI who are experts in incidents relating to animal disappearances. We have sought their help,” he said.
Mr Mungantiwar said that the tigress did not disappear from a tiger conservation forest where the government already has a tiger protection force in place, or else the cubs would not have died of starvation.
“The place where the incident has happened is not a natural jungle. It’s way outside the buffer zone. Here plantations have been created artificially. We have now put camera traps in the area. We also suspect snakebite to be one of the causes of her disappearance,” he said.
The minister also said that the government has learnt a lesson on keeping watch on tigers outside sanctuaries, as their number has increased considerably in the last two years. “As of now, there are 190 tigers above two years of age in Maharashtra. The number of cubs is around 50-60 in total.
Natural deaths occur after tigers reach 12 years of age, but in the last two years there has been no poaching incident, he said. On Sunday, villagers of Pathri detected the carcasses of three tiger cubs in the Saoli forest range near Gosikhurd canal in Chandrapur. The spot is at-least 50 km away from the Tadoba tiger sanctuary.
On being informed, forest officials searched the area and found another cub, which was alive. It was taken to Chandrapur for treatment, but it did not survive.
