HYDERABAD: Out on a massive hunt to capture a maneater that has struck terror in some villages of Komaram Bheem Asifnagar district of Telangana with human kills, the tracking team was pleasantly surprised on Tuesday to discover another tigress and two cubs in the forest area.
“Yes, it’s great news. We have identified pug marks of two cubs and a tigress, identified as S6, in Sirpur range of Kagaznagar,” said one official.
The tracking teams are searching for the tiger that killed two people within a span of 18 days in November and December last year. They said measures are also being taken to protect the newly-discovered tigress and her two cubs. “The movements of both the adult tigress and the cubs which are native to Telangana are being closely tracked. The forest staff is taking all measures to ensure their safety,” said district forest officer (DFO) S Santharam.
Santharam said they are also taking measures that no wildlife enthusiast or any department staff leaks pictures of tigress under the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) protocols.
As the tiger population in this part of the state changes due to the constant migration towards Mancherial district in Telangana or further towards Maharashtra, officials said there are at present eight tigers, but at times when they are on the move, possibly four are left in one zone. Telangana’s tiger population is around 26 and it also has 334 leopards.
Altogether 60 special teams, trying to capture the tiger at large for two months, reported another incident of a big cat killing a buffalo on Tuesday in Thalugupalli sector in Kagaznagar. After inspecting the pug marks found in the area, forest department staff confirmed that it was a tiger kill. But the elusive A2 is currently on the Maharashtra side of its territory. “It is in Maharashtra but since its territory is spread across both the states, it keeps moving in and out of Telangana. The border between both the states is divided by a small river, a tributary of Pranahita, which it frequently crosses while travelling across the territory,” said Shantaram. “On Monday, we received information that it made a kill in Maharashtra. On Telangana side of the forest, the efforts to capture the animal are still on, but the only thing is while we are making attempts to tranquilize and capture an animal like a tiger, we cannot continuously trace it because it might get suspicious,” he added.