Tiger suspected of killing 7 caught in Nainital forests
FOREST DEPT STARTED AN OPERATION TO TRANQUILISE THE TIGER ON FEB 23, BUT THE TIGER WAS NOT FOUND
HALDWANI: Uttarakhand forest department has caught the tiger which likely killed seven people in last over five months from Fatehpur forest area in Nainital district.
The tiger was tranquilised on Tuesday evening and taken to Nainital Zoo. Now after the medical examination and further tests, the forest department will confirm whether this tiger is the same one which killed seven people since December last year.
Chandrashekhar Joshi, divisional forest officer (DFO) Ramnagar forest division said, “Search operation to catch this tiger was going on since December 29, 2021. A large number forest patrolling staff members and of veterinarians were constantly searching in the forests to track this tiger. Eventually the team got success and caught the tiger.”
“The team tranquilized the tiger at Jamanpur beat in Fatehpur range on Tuesday evening.
The tiger has been rescued and taken to Nainital Zoo, where the tiger will be medically examined and its tests will be conducted to confirm this is the same tiger which killed seven people”, he said.
According to forest officials, the tiger had created panic in the Fatehpur forest range of Ramnagar forest division. The tiger killed its first victim on December 29, 2021. Then it killed two people in January, one in February, two in March and one earlier this month.
Since January this year, the forest officials have been searching for the tiger but every time a tigress was spotted in camera trap images around the incident site.
Uttarakhand forest department started an intensive operation to tranquilise the tiger on February 23, but the tiger was not found. The villagers created a ruckus when the tiger killed a woman who had gone to collect grass in the forest in Kathgodam on March 31. After this, the divisional forest officer (DFO) Chandrashekhar Joshi sought permission for declaring the tiger a maneater, which was granted and an intensive search operation was started.
The forest officials and patrolling staff from Ramnagar forest division, Terai East, Terai Central and Nainital forest division were deployed in search of the tiger. Apart from this, a 30-member team from Gujarat also reached Nainital district to track the tiger. This team camped in the forests of Fatehpur for about a month. Apart from this, 8 cages, 80 camera traps and forest staff of over 100 employees were also deployed in the forests to catch the tiger but the tiger remained elusive.
There was not a single incident of killing in April and May and the tiger did not come out of the forest, said forest officials. Following this, on May 24-25 May, the forest department declared that the tiger was no longer a man-eater tiger.
But on June 16, a 75-year-old woman who went to collect grass from the forest was killed by the tiger. On this the enraged villagers protested and kept the body of the woman on Kaladhungi road, demanding that the tiger be declared maneater and eliminated. After this, the paperwork was started for declaring it a maneater. However it was caught before being declared a maneater. At the same time, a team of veterinarians was continuously scavenging the forests to get some clue about the tiger and tranquilise it.
In the late evening on June 21, the team of veterinarians found a tiger in Jamanpur beat of Fatehpur range. The team targeted the tiger to tranquilise it. They shot the tiger with the tranquilising gun but it ran away.
The forest team kept searching the forest area and final they spotted the tiger lying unconscious on a hillock in the forests. On this, the team rescued the tiger and took it to Nainital Zoo.