Forest guard booked for killing Corbett tigress

DEHRADUN : A forest guard was booked under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 as the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) administration on Wednesday admitted that the tigress that entered the Marchula market in Almora district on Monday evening was killed in firing by the guard.

Forest department officials claimed that the forest guard of Mandal range of the reserve, Dheeraj Singh, had fired two rounds on the ground using a 12-bore gun to scare away the tigress but pellets of one round hit the right thigh of the big cat. On the basis of prima facie evidence, the forest guard has also been attached to Plane range office, Kalagarh, of the reserve.

CTR director Dheeraj Pandey in a statement said, “The tigress had turned violent and posed a threat to the life of locals in the densely populated area and a forester had initially fired 9 rounds into the air using a 315-bore service rifle to scare away the animal towards the forest area but the big cat tried to enter the houses and shops repeatedly.”

When asked whether he can cite specific threat or violence by the tigress, Pandey said, “The tigress didn’t attack anybody neither no one received injuries in the struggle to scare the tigress away towards the forests.”

On the reason why the forest team fired at the animal, he said, “Countless people were standing on their terrace, so forest team couldn’t fire more shots into air. To ensure safety of humans and scare the tigress away from the populated area, the forest guard fired two rounds on the ground, but the pellets of one round hit in the right thigh of the animal leading to animal’s death.”

Ramnagar-based wildlife activist AG Ansari said, “It’s an unthinkable act and first such incident in Corbett landscape. We can see in video that the barrel of the gun was pointed towards the animal. They could have used quick reaction team and made more attempts to tranquilise the tigress.”