Wire snare falls off tigress on its own, wound heals

Nagpur:

Tigress T41

of the

Pench Tiger Reserve

(PTR), Maharashtra, which was spotted with a

wire snare

in her neck on January 26, has been relieved of the trap automatically without any tranquillizing efforts.

On January 26, 2022, the five-year-old tigress was spotted with a wire snare in one of the camera trap images in the Maikepar beat under the Nagalwadi forest range. The spot where the tigress was recorded is a kilometre from a village. It is suspected the snare must have been laid to kill a herbivore for bushmeat.

The officials had deployed around 60 camera traps and 11 teams to monitor the tigress. According to Prabhu Nath Shukla, deputy director (core), the tigress was recorded without the snare on February 17. In between several attempts to tranquillize the animal were made but it was not possible due to rugged terrain and the huge area the tigress occupied.

As per the Phase IV monitoring report of 2021, the range of the tigress was spread over Nagalwadi, Saleghat and West Pench ranges of Pench covering around 40 compartments involving an area of over 110 sqkm.

“The April 16 photograph showed that the wound of the tigress has healed completely. We still took time to announce it was the same tigress. We matched stripe pattern with a series of pictures of the animal and finally concluded it was T41,” said Shukla.

Despite a wire snare in the neck, the tigress was consistently moving and covering long distances and was able to kill and even feed on the prey. She was also sighted with a male tiger T96. On February 17, camera trap photographs revealed that the tigress was free of the snare. However, the monitoring team still kept a close watch on the tigress as there was a wound on its neck. However, the images of April 16, showed the wound had healed completely and the tigress was healthy.

“The patrolling and monitoring teams covered over 1,500km during the entire operation to track the tigress,” said ACF Atul Deokar. Special monitoring efforts were done by ACFs Kiran Patil and Anil Parab, and RFOs Vishal Chavan, Vijay Kadam, Vijay Suryawanshi, and others.


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