PILIBHIT: A 3.5-year-old tigress, suspected to have killed five people, including a woman, between May 14 and July 17 in five different villages of UP's Pilibhit district was sent for life to Kanpur zoo on Saturday after a seven-day rescue operation.
The feline was spotted by thermal drone cameras in a sugarcane field after which it was hit with two darts around 7 pm on July 24, and kept in Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR) under medical observation. Officials said it was found healthy without any physical injury or deformity.
UP chief wildlife warden Anuradha Vemuri told TOI: "We cannot risk any more fatal attacks on villagers as the feline has developed a habit of prowling in rural areas and hiding in farms. Hence, it is not possible to release this big cat back into the wild."
PTR DFO, Manish Singh, said, "The tigress was spotted on several occasions by forest staff as well as locals next to a canal outside the forest area near junction point of PTR, Mailani forest range and Kishanpur wildlife sanctuary in Kheri district. But how the human-friendly tigress transmuted into a killer remains a mystery."
Singh added that a feline normally mauls humans under accidental circumstances or inability to hunt wild prey, but this physical restraint was not applicable in this case.
Notably, the tigress killed two farmers on May 14 and 18 in Nazirganj and Haripur Kishanpur, respectively. The third death was in neighbouring Bithra Mandaria on July 17. The other two kills were in nearby areas which caused panic and anger among locals in the villages near the PTR and its vicinity.