2 that won’t roar anymore: ST11, T28 Ranthambore loses its ‘Star’ to illness
SARISKA Reserve loses 4yearold male, was last seen with missing tigress ST5 ALWAR
: The Sariska tiger, ST-11, which was found dead on Monday night, died due to strangulation, the post-mortem has found. The tiger was cremated after an autopsy.
Sariska Tiger Reserve’s deputy conservator of forest Balaji Kari said that the four-year-old tiger died in Kalamedha village of Indok forest area near the field of Bhagwan Sahay Prajapat on Monday after it was caught in a snare put up by the farmer to keep animals from his crops.
“The post-mortem was conducted by a board of doctors in the presence of nominees of the district collector and superintendent of police,” Kari said. He added that the 35-year-old farmer was arrested on the charges of hunting under Section 9 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Rajasthan’s chief wildlife warden GV Reddy said the department will run a campaign to identify agriculture fields where farmers have put up snares for protection of their crop from wild animals. “The tiger tried its best and struggled to save himself from the snare but the wires were so strong that he couldn’t free himself from it,” Reddy said.
Reddy and Wildlife Institute of India’s scientist Dr Parag Nigam reached the reserve on Tuesday morning to investigate the case.
The officer said radio collars will be fitted on all tigers. “The central government has sanctioned eight radio collars for STR,” he said.
ST-11’s death comes as a double whammy for Sariska administration, which is working hard to trace tigress ST-5 missing since February 21. ST-5 was last seen with ST-11 in the Umri area of the reserve, officials said.
STR field director Govind Swaroop Bhardwaj said intensive monitoring was going on to search for the missing tigress. “We have set up 80 cameras in the areas where ST-5’s movement was recorded in the past. In all, 121 cameras will be installed in the whole of the STR area,” he said.
Jungle Watch Group secretary Sanjeev Karagwal informed forest officials about the death of ST-11. “The farmer came to my office on Monday evening to tell me about the death. I called the forest officials. In fact, I took the farmer to them in Sariska where he was arrested,” said Karagwal, an advocate. “The death of a tiger raises questions over the monitoring in the reserve because it had a radio collar around its neck and the collar emits a sound when the animal dies. It is strange that no one heard the tiger’s cries while it struggled with the barbed wire around its neck and no one paid any heed to the collar blip,” said Karagwal. The death of ST-11 is the second case after repopulation of Sariska. In 2010, ST-1, the first tiger relocated from Ranthambore, died after villagers poisoned it. The then Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and the then union forest minister Jairam Ramesh had visited the reserve after the death of ST-1.
A 13-year-old tiger died at Ranthambore Tiger Reserve (RTR) in Rajasthan on Tuesday, officials said.
The tiger, T-28, aka ‘star’, died a day after the death of 4-year-old male big cat ST-11 at a farmland near the Sariska reserve.
“This morning information was received that the tiger T-28 was sitting in an agriculture field of Chaan village on Khandar road (periphery of Ranthambore Tiger Reserve). A forest team was sent there and he was found still near the fencing of the field, and was surrounded by villagers,” said YK Sahu, chief conservator of forest, wildlife, and field director, Ranthambore Tiger Project, Sawaimadhopur.
“The tiger was tranquilised and brought to Gudda forest area where he died at 1pm. The post-mortem of the tiger was conducted as per the guidelines of National Tiger Conservation Authority,” Sahu said.
“The post-mortem report revealed that the tiger was suffering from gastric torsion in cardia (upper region). When he ran and entered the field, the problem aggravated,” he said, adding that the big cat suffered from the problem two years back, and was treated. The tiger has been cremated.
T-28 fathered nine cubs – six from T-19 (T-63, 64, 65, 83, 84 and 85) and three from T-17 (T-73, 74, and 75); he was popularly known as ‘star’ because of starlike marks over his eye.
The tiger was pushed out by dominant male big cat T-95 to periphery areas around one and a half years ago, officials said. Earlier, the ‘star’ was moving around in Rajbagh, a core area of RTR.
“Territorial fights are normal and happen when new breeds arrive; the old, such as T-6 and T-25, are pushed out,” said a forest official.
The state government will soon shift big cats from Ranthambore to Mukundra Hills Tiger Reserve in Kota, India’s first relocation of stripped animals to decongest a wildlife habitat.
JAIPUR: