The tigress was shot dead after it killed five people in the area.
Man-eater Pandharkawda tigress T1 has been shot dead.“The end came around 11 pm on Friday near a road from Borati village to the tahsil headquarter of Ralegaon. The shot was taken by Asgar Ali Khan, son of sharp-shooter Shafath Ali Khan,” Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) A K Mishra told The Indian Express.
Mishra said, “We had information about her movement near this road the whole of yesterday, so we had stationed a team with a tranquillisation gun along with Asgar in a vehicle. The team frequently saw the tigress in the forest compartment Number 149 near the road but the sighting was only fleeting. Finally, at around 11 pm, one of our forest staffers managed to dart her with a tranquillisation gun. But she charged at the team, forcing Asgar to shoot in self-defence. The tigress lay dead in a single shot.”
Shafath Ali Khan was away in Patna to attend the meeting of Bihar State Wildlife Board, where he was recently named a member. He returned to the field on Saturday morning.
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In the August attacks, T1 and her cubs also devoured the bodies
The body was sent to Nagpur’s Gorewada Zoo, where a post-mortem will be conducted. “It would have been difficult doing it here since it would have attracted a large crowd. We also wanted it to be done by a neutral person, to keep it transparent,” Mishra added.
When the tigress was shot dead her cubs were not around. “We will now sit down and prepare a fresh strategy to capture them,” Mishra said.
The tigress was six year old and her cubs are about one year old. Meanwhile, allegations are being leveled against officials of forest department for not following standard operating procedure (SOP). Jerry Banait, who had filed several pleas in HC and SC, said, “why did they dart her when it is prohibited after sunset and before sunrise? Also, there was no veterinary doctor in the team when it happened, which is a violation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s SOP.” He also said that he would take the matter to the court again. Mishra, however, had told The Indian Express in an earlier interview that “darting can very well be done even during night is there is no danger of the tigress running into any nearby water body.”
A senior Forest official said, “it’s true that there was no veterinary doctor in the team but the dart had been prepared by a vet and was fired by one of our men. In any case, the dart isn’t fired by the doctor.”
An image of the 6-year-old tigress. (Express Photo/Deepak Daware)
The shoot order issued on September 4 was mired in litigation by wildlife activists up to the Supreme Court, which cleared shooting on September 11. The operation to capture or kill T1 and capture her cubs has been going on since then. Since June 2016, 13 people have been killed in tiger attacks in Pandharkawda divisional forest, 11 of whom were shepherds inside the forest and two in farms. Of the last five deaths, one was in December 2017, one in January 2018 and three in August.
In fact, the first shoot order was issued in January but stayed by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court after the tigress was found moving around with her cubs. The second order came after three quick fatal attacks in August, leading to massive public outrage.
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Since then no attacks took place, which activists ponied out as a negation of her being a habitual man-eater. But the Forest Department attributed it to continuous tracking and vigil operations. The operation had many hits and misses, including a botched up elephant-aided tracking, when an elephant had run away from the base camp at Sarati and killed a woman at a village 20 km away.
There were also protests against Shafath Ali Khan being given the task to shoot the tigress. Khan had said that it was impossible to tranquilise the tigress as she had become very aggressive and the Lantana-infected forest had made it next to impossible.
It was one of the longest-running operations to capture or kill a tiger in the country with officials trying every trick to lure her out of hiding. From a hang-glider to specialist Italian dogs and from drones to Calvin Klein perfume and slither tigress’ urine, the officials tried every possible way, spending lakhs of rupees on an operation involving about 200 personnel from Forest and Police department. In an unprecedented order, State Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar had directed Mishra and his deputy, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Sunil Limaye to camp at Pandharkawda till the operation was not successfully carried out.
In the past few days, T1 had been spotted moving close to villages, adding to the worry of the officials.