Elusive tiger makes second kill

12 Jan 2009, 0352 hrs IST, Neha Shukla, TNN

LUCKNOW: The young tiger is back in news for its second human kill. The feline killed a 55-years old man on Saturday night in Saidpur gram sabha of Rudauli tehsil. The forest staff at Faizabad shared that public resentment has been uncontrollable in the area.

According to the reports from the spot, the man had entered into the forest and did not return till late in the evening. A hunt was launched for the missing man after the villagers raised an alarm. The forest team which had gone searching for the missing man recovered clothes with bloodstains from the forest. The tiger had eaten portions from the body of the man. The body was sent for the post-mortem on Sunday.

The villagers in this area go into the forest to collect `lantana’ stems for making baskets. The man too had gone for the same and had a chance encounter with the tiger in the evening. It is the nature of the tiger to attack humans in the evening.

Neither the man nor the tiger is to be blamed here. The fault definitely lies with the department. It has failed to solve the problem. Even the scientific input from Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has not helped. Preventing men from entering the forest is not feasible in the human areas. The effort, therefore, should be to trap the tiger.

This is the second man-killing incident. The big cat had killed a 14-years old boy in Bastauli village of Barabanki division on December 20. It was after this incident that the tiger was tagged as a man-eater and the department had ordered to shoot it down. Though the orders still exist but the effort has shifted towards trapping it alive.

The tiger has been moving around, changing places frequently in Rudauli range, ever since it entered Faizabad division on December 27. It was hiding in the forest patches along the villages and Gomti river. The staff shared that it has confined the tiger to 10-12 kms of area in the past ten days or so but it is not possible to hold it to one place for long.

Much water has flown under the bridge since December 13 when the tiger was spotted in an open area by the villagers of Gauriaghat village. The department had initiated the efforts to get hold of the tiger since then. The strategies and partners in the mission have changed but the result remains the same. The tiger is still elusive.

But, if the man-killing incidents keep taking place will the tiger be safe for long? The anger against the tiger is mounting among the villagers.

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