A loud roar to save tigers in their Dudhwa territory

LUCKNOW: On June 9 this year, a decomposed carcass of an adult tiger was recovered from the Mailani range of Dudhwa tiger reserve. The big cat had injury marks on its head and paws. The cause of death was said to be infighting and it was the fourth tiger death in the reserve within two months.
Tigers dying due to infighting is not rare given their territorial nature, but what raised the concern was that the carcass had remained undiscovered for days which indicated lack of active patrolling by the forest staff.It’s possible that the injured tiger could have been saved if received timely treatment.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath took immediate cognizance and same day sent the minister of state for forest AK Saxena, additional chief secretary, forest, MK Singh and senior forest officials to the spot to enquire into the feline deaths and submit a detailed report.
Parallelly, the then field director of Dudhwa reserve, B Prabhakar; DFO Sundaresh and three forest rangers were transferred for laxity. Lalit Verma, chief conservator, Bareilly, replaced Prabhakar.
Lalit Verma cites the shortage of frontline staff as the main factor that affects management of the reserve. Dudhwa is at least 40% short of the staff like forest guards, foresters and deputy rangers and range officers, though in recent years the reserve has got 16 new rangers. The proposal to fill the other vacancies has also been sent to the service commission. Besides filling the vacancies, there is a need for better management of human resources, say sources.
The postmortem reports of four tigers found dead in Dudhwa reserve between April and June this year revealed they had no traces of food and water in their stomachs. This too raises the red flag over the management of prey base and habitat in the reserve.
The state government has constituted a committee to look into the causes of tiger deaths and give recommendations for better management of the reserve.
Three of the four dead tigers were found in the Mailani range. One reason for it, senior forest officials say, is that tiger sightings have increased in this range and hence it needs more attention and improvement in the quality of habitat and restoration of corridors.
“More leopards are now straying into Mailani range and this too has increased leopard-tiger infighting and their conflict with humans in the reserve, says Lalit Verma.