Should a man-eating tigress be sedated or shot dead? SC leaves it to forest dept
NEW DELHI: Should a ‘man eater’ tigress be tranquilized or shot dead? This peculiar question has come in the way of the forest department which has been finding it tough to catch the big cat that has already claimed at least nine lives in the Ralegaon forest area of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra.
The forest department has claimed that the six-year-old tigress, identified as T1, along with two of her nine-monthold cubs, have consumed 60 per cent of a human corpse, that has led it to declare her a ‘man-eater’.
The question whether the tigress, which claimed three lives last month, should be tranquilized or shot and killed reached before the Supreme Court Tuesday.
The apex court heard the petitions challenging the Bombay Hight Court’s recent decision giving a go-ahead to the forest department to implement its order to tranquilize or shoot the tigress.
While the petitioners claimed that it has not been established that the corpse was eaten by the tigress and her cubs, the forest department maintained that the big cat was responsible for at least nine deaths.
The department said they were trying hard to get to a ‘touching distance’ of the tigress to dart her with a tranquilizer for the last six months, but have failed.
The petitioners urged a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta that if the tigress was shot dead, both her cubs would not be able to survive in the forest.
The bench, while refusing to interfere with the high court decision, said the forest department would be bound by their own order to tranquilize her first and, in case of failure, shoot her.
When the counsel for one of the petitioners said the forest department has roped in a “sharp shooter” to straightaway kill the tigress, the bench said “We have said that they (forest department) will be bound by their order”.
Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for another petitioner, told the court that even if people entering the forest area get killed by the tigress, that does not make her a ‘man eater’.