The elation in Madhya Pradesh at the state regaining the tag of 'Tiger State' with the highest tiger population in the country earlier this week has been tempered after three big cats were found dead in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve and its peripheral area in the past three days.
A tigress—identified as T62—and her cub were found dead in Kallawah range in the core area of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve late on Sunday evening. On Tuesday evening, a tiger cub was found dead in the Ghunghuti area of Umaria territorial division of the forest department.
Chief wildlife warden (CWLW) of Madhya Pradesh U. Prakasham confirmed the deaths to THE WEEK. Giving details, he said that postmortems and probe suggested that the tigress and her cub were killed by a dominant male tiger in the core area of BTR. Another cub of T62 was found safe and is under care and protection of the forest officials, he said.
Referring to the cub found in Ghunghuti area, Prakasham said it did not have any external injuries and the postmortem found it died of snakebite. This cub was aged about 18 months. Prakasham added that the causes of death in all three cases could be termed as natural.
In reply to a query, Prakasham said that there were a considerable number of tigers present in the non-protected forest areas and the focus is now to beef up security and conservation for them too.
“These tigers breed in the protected area where the safety measures are relatively better and then move out. So, it is important to improve security in non-protected areas, too,” he said.
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On July 29, Madhya Pradesh regained the tag of 'Tiger State' as the Tiger Estimation Report for 2018 released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed presence of 526 tigers in the state as against 524 in Karnataka, the state with highest number of tigers during the past eight years.
The thin lead in tiger population seems to be ever under threat with Madhya Pradesh constantly reporting high number of tiger deaths in the past few years, wildlife activist Ajay Dubey said.
