Sariska tiger hurt in territorial fight dies
SARISKA(ALWAR): The Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) in Rajasthan’s Alwar district lost a tiger on Sunday morning, 26 days after it was injured in a territorial fight with another big cat, forest officials said. The tiger was cremated after a team of doctors conducted the post-mortem.
With this loss, the number of tigers in Sariska has come down to 16. “Tiger ST-4, which was put in an enclosure in Kali Ghati forest range after it got injured, died on Sunday morning,” said STR chief conservator of forests Govind Sagar Bhardwaj.
Dr Dinkar Sharma, head of the board of doctors, said prima facie the cause of death is traumatic shock. “We’ve collected the samples and will send it to Bareilly for testing,” he said. Sharma added that the tiger had not eaten anything in the past few days.
ST-4 is the third tiger to have died after the reserve was repopulated between 2008 and 2012. ST-1, the first tiger relocated from Ranthambore, died in 2010 after villagers poisoned it.
Bhardwaj said ST-4 and ST-6 are both around 12-14 years old. They had clashed with each other on the night of November 13, and ST-4 was wounded on the left leg and elsewhere on the body.
The wounded big cat was treated by veterinarian Dr Arvind Mathur on November 14.
Tiger ST-4 was relocated from Ranthambore in 2010 and ST-6 was brought from there the following year. Both had a history of fighting over territory.
POACHING TRAP LED TO DEATH OF ODISHA TIGER
A translocated tiger, the carcass
of which was found in an Odisha sanctuary last month, died after falling into a trap laid by poachers, two central government agencies dealing with wildlife have said. This was stated by a joint inspection team of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India in its report.
A member of the WII said, “The trap might have been set up to capture wild boar, so it cannot be called targeted poaching, but accidental.”