Tiger in waynad wildlife sanctuary shot dead

[Prasanth Sreenivasan]

sad to hear the news that the tiger was shot dead as per govt.orders. officials from kerala and karnataka took part in this operation. it was given tranquilizer shots two times which had not effect as per the reports and it was shot. idiots!

http://www.manoramanews.com/cgi-bin/...entId=12946115

Tiger shot dead in Kerala
PTI Wayanad, Kerala, December 02, 2012

A tiger, which had been on the prowl in some areas in the Wayanad district in since the last couple of weeks was killed, official sources said.
The presence of the tiger has terrorised people in Naikkatty, Kottamkara and Muthanga areas in the district. It had also killed a few domestic animals including a cow, officials said.

Despite combing operations by a special task force from Kerala and also expert team from Karnataka, the tiger was evading capture by moving places, despite all out efforts made by forest officials and the people to trap it.
The tiger was spotted at about 8.15am at Thelapparmbu in Moolamkavu and the combing team fired tranquiliser at the tiger.

However, it fled the scene and later was found in a nearby coffee plantation.

Again it was given another shot of tranquiliser and was found dead.

A couple of weeks back, a 15-year old tiger, which had stayed into Thirunelly and killed four cows, was trapped in a cage by the forest officials and later released iit on the Kerala-Karnataka border.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Seems the over dose of the tranquiliser killed it. I had heard similar cases before in which the tiger was killed due to an overdose. A very unfortunate event.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

There were some reports of the tiger dying due to gun shot and to cover up the forest department has taken the plea of failing to tranquilise it. There was pressure on the forest department to kill the tiger as the tiger was reported to have killed a few cattle. The forest department has buckled down under pressure and killed the tiger. NTCA is now probing the incident. When the protectors turn killers, it would be difficult to save the tiger.
Sabyasachi

The following report was published in Asian Age:

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.

The source article from Asian Age: http://www.asianage.com/india/ntca-r...er-killing-626

[Prasanth Sreenivasan]

this story on the wayanad tiger killing was published in the hindu today.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/...cle4175132.ece