Maharashtra: Two tigers poached in region, toll increases to 14 in 81 days

NAGPUR: It’s raining tiger deaths in Maharashtra. With the poaching of two tigers on Tuesday, the toll since January 1, 2021 (81 days), has mounted to 14, including two cubs.

With more than 50% of deaths due to poaching, experts say the state forest department needs to pull up its socks. This is the fourth tiger death in the last 10 days and the third in the last three days.
On Tuesday, two tigers were found dead in separate cases in the region. A tigress (T7), around 4 years, died of suspected strangulation after a wire trap entangled her neck. The trap was perhaps laid for herbivores near Sonegaon under the Maregaon forest range in the Pandharkawda division. The carcass was found in a dry nullah around 1pm.
In the second incident, the carcass of a full-grown tiger was noticed around 2pm by some women from Sarra village who had gone to the forest to collect fuelwood. The women informed the sarpanch who alerted foresters. The carcass was found in a nullah in compartment number 707 in the Warpani beat of FDCM’s Risala range.
“The area adjoins the Nagalwadi range of the Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR). The carcass was highly decomposed and all the hair had fallen. The four paws of the tiger were chopped off. The tiger is fully grown and the death must have occurred at least 8-10 days ago. Due to recent rains, the carcass was damaged further,” said Rishikesh Ranjan, general manager, FDCM.
Perturbed by the tiger deaths, PCCF (wildlife) Nitin Kakodkar has sounded an alert to all forest officials and instructed them to take up strict monitoring of all village peripheral areas for possible wire traps in view of the tiger death in Maregaon. In view of Holi festivities, herbivore poaching may be attempted, and hence, the PCCF has asked for special patrolling teams to be deployed.
Experts and wildlife lovers have expressed shock over the series of tiger deaths in the state. “This is indeed very alarming. Tigers getting killed by poachers calls for improving the quality of protection immediately. The menace of poachers from Chhindwara district in forests around Pench has to be tackled jointly by both states. The Pandharkawda tiger snaring case is clearly the handiwork of local poachers who use snares to kill deer and wild pigs. Looking at the poaching pressure, the snares and the electric wire traps everywhere, one fears for the fate of the famous tiger ‘Walker’, not seen for some time now,” said Nitin Desai, director, Central India, Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).
“Tigers killing tigers or cubs is a natural phenomenon and indicates competition for space. This calls for long-term measures to increase space available to tigers and active population management,” added Desai.
In the Umred-Karhandla-Paoni sanctuary, two eight-month-old tiger cubs were killed by the park’s dominant male Surya on March 13 and 20 respectively. These cubs of tigress Collarwali were not sired by him and he killed them to engage the tigress into mating. On March 21, a tigress was killed outside Bor.
“It is a fact that gangs from neighbouring MP villages enter forest areas on our side and poach herbivores for bushmeat. On November 27, electric wires were laid inside the tourism zone of Surewani under Pench. The fact came to light after a spark. Earlier, in Pandharkawda, too, tigers with snares have died but it seems that no lessons have been learnt,” said wildlife lover Vinit Arora.