UP: Strangled by wire trap, tigress dies sans food for 10 days

BAREILLY: For nearly 10 days, a tigress in the Dudhwa reserve had been trudging along with a nylon wire trap painfully enmeshed in her neck. She went without food or water all those days, dropping dead on the edge of the forest two days ago. Her autopsy report that came in on Wednesday said her stomach was empty, faecal sample hard and body dehydrated.
“There were maggots in the wounds from the wire that cut into her neck,” Anil Patel, deputy director of the buffer areas of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, told TOI. “She had not eaten or had any water because of the wires.”
Forest officials do not know how or where she was ensnared. Nylon wire traps are often set for wild boars, killed illegally by those living on the edges of the forest areas. “She seems to have freed herself of the trap but couldn’t get rid of the rope tied tightly around her neck,” Patel said. She wandered off to a village under the Jatpura beat of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve’s Mailani forest range.
“The tigress was standing close to a villager who was busy cutting grass. Another farmer spotted her and was alarmed. But she could only make it a few steps ahead before she collapsed,” Patel said. Villagers informed forest officials and her autopsy was conducted on Tuesday night.
By Wednesday, an FIR had been registered against 12 Hardua villagers for poaching — those who had allegedly laid the trap. “Five have been arrested,” Patel said.