Tiger sits in gorge, forest teams wait with darts
BHARATPUR: The Ranthambore tiger that killed a 30-year-old man in Karauli district on September 12 is ensconced in a gorge for more than 40 hours, making it difficult for forest department teams to tranquilise it, officials said on Sunday.
“Since the evening on Thursday, tiger T-104 is sitting in a deep, long and flowing gorge and the terrain around it makes it difficult for us to shoot the dart,” said Deputy conservator of forest (DCF) and Ranthambore deputy director Hemant Singh.
Rajasthan chief wildlife warden Arindam Tomar said teams from Jaipur and Ranthambore are in the area to tranquilise and catch the animal.
Ranthambore Tiger Reserve field director Manoj Parashar said once caught, the tiger will be shifted to a 2-hectare enclosure, which was built a few months ago for injured tigers.
According to an official part of one of the teams, two attempts were made on Saturday evening and Sunday morning when teams received stronger radio signal, hinting that the tiger may be moving out of the gorge. However, the animal has refused to move out, making the attempts futile.
The gorge, Hadiya Khoh, lies in the Kaila Devi Sanctuary, which is part of the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve. It is around 200-ft deep.
T-104 killed Pintu Mali of Karauli on September 12 when he was working in his farmland, forest officials said.
The tiger has earlier killed two more people – 40-year-old man in Durgeshi Ghata area of Karauli on July 31, and 40-year-old woman near Ranthambore in February – this year, and the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve administration is likely to put it in an enclosure after it is captured this time.
After T-104 killed the man in Durgeshi Ghata, it moved through a huge tract of land interspersed with ravines, degraded forest and irrigated fields, for 11 days before it was tranquilised on August 12. It was fitted with a GPS collar, which helps monitor movement better than its VHF (very high frequency) equivalents, and sent to the Balas Dang area to prevent territorial fights because this area has no competing tiger. T-104 had a territorial fight with T-64 in May this year and was injured.