Special: The man-eater of Bandipur
The man-eater tiger of Bandipur is hungry, little efforts by the Forest Department.
By : amit s. upadhye
Update: 2013-12-05 09:58 GMT
If the three deaths in the last one week indicate anything, it is that the man-eater of Bandipur is hungry. So far, forest department’s efforts have not been been able to restrain the big cat. Forest officials, left scampering for an answer to this problem, have finally passed shoot at sight orders. This tiger will probably be put down eventually, but the threat to human life continues for now.
With another man down and consumed by a tiger that has been on the prowl for a while now, anger is rising in the village of Chikbargi near the Bandipur Tiger Reserve.
Forest officials who had paid little attention to the first kill by the animal, woke up to the urgency of the situation a little too late for the villagers’ liking and were greeted by hostility when they arrived on hearing of the tiger turning maneater. They were stoned and their vehicles burnt by villagers, who wanted an end to the terror stalking them as the tiger has pounced on unsuspecting men going about their daily work on the fringes on the forest for over a week now.
So angry were the villagers after the latest kill that they did not allow the foresters to do an inquest for over 48 hours although the killer tiger had consumed 80 per cent of its victim’s body and even returned to feed on him some more Wednesday morning. It was scared away by 20 rounds fired in the air by the police who too had rushed to the spot where the half -eaten body of Basappa, the third victim, lay.
The tiger had not attempted to prey on its earlier two victims, farmers who were killed just outside the Bandipur Tiger Reserve. Another farmer injured in the first attack is now being treated at the H D Kote government hospital.
The fact that it has turned maneater with its third victims clearly shows the tiger is hungry , say wildlife experts warning that the animal will look for another human prey unless it is caught or shot down soon. They recall that they had, in fact, recommended shooting the tiger after it claimed its first victim Basavraju, 45, from Medai village who had gone to tether his cattle on the fringes of the forest on November 27.
Unfortunately forest officials did not take the kill seriously until the tiger took its second victim, a tribesman, Cheluva on November 29. An operation was then launched to capture the animal alive by tranquilising it, but veterinarians who shot seven darts at the big cat missed each time, letting it run back into the forests.
The same evening the tiger claimed the life of Basappa and fed on him. Wildlife conservationists are worried the bungling by the forest department could turn the villagers hostile to tigers and impact the programme to protect them. They believe a dedicated team of wildlife veterinarians is essential in these parts as although the state is home to the largest numbers of tigers and elephants in the country, it has only two licensed dartmen.
"We must have a professional team of wildlife experts who understand animal biology and can tranquilise wild animals if they stray into human habitations. A dedicated call centre and a team of experts must be located in areas where man-animal conflict is on the rise,” says a wildlife expert.
Next: ‘No option but to eliminate the tiger’
‘No option but to eliminate the tiger’
The government has issued shoot at sight orders for the tiger which has killed three people in the Bandipur forests in a week. Minister for forests Ramanath Rai told the Legislative Council on Wednesday during zero hour that the government was doing its best to put an end to the fear in the area.
“Although the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act-1972 is against killing of wildlife, we have no option but to eliminate this maneating tiger,” he said.
Clarifying that forest watcher Suresh was killed at the Kallapeter camp in the Nagarahole range on November 29 by a different tiger, he said the maneater was responsible for the other three kills between November 27 and December 3. The three men Basavaraj, Cheluva and Basappa were killed by the same tiger in Bandipur, he explained.
The forest department’s efforts to trap the tiger with the help of elephants and attempts by veterinarian Dr. Nagaraj and his team to tranquilise it had failed, he admitted. However, nearly 50 personnel of the special tiger protection force had joined the operation since November 30.
“At one point the department sighted the maneater and tried to tranquilise it on November 30, but thick bushes made it difficult to take aim. Forest officers and the police sighted the tiger on December 3 again after it killed Basappa in the Chikbargi forests and fired at it, but it got away,” he said, disclosing that the forest department had called on the services of a specialist, Dr Sanath from Bannerghatta to help with the operation to capture the tiger.
“It was natural for people to get angry after the tiger killed four people. We have requested the people not to enter the forest because shoot at sight orders are in force,” he said, adding that the government had given Rs 1 lakh to the victim’s family and the remaining four lakhs would be given soon.
Next: Man-animal conflict on rise in Bandipur, Nagarhole
Man-animal conflict on rise in Bandipur, Nagarhole
Fed up with attacks on their livestock, angry villagers had poisoned two tigers outside Nagarhole forest last year. On Tuesday night they turned their ire on foresters and torched their vehicles after a farmer was killed and eaten by a tiger in Bandipur.
The villagers are getting increasingly upset with the authorities as Bandipur and Nagarhole forests are seeing a rise in man-animal conflict. Unfortunately, the forest department has not succeeded in persuading people to give up grazing, and collecting wood from the forests, which is contributing to the problem. Around three lakh cattle enter the Bandipur and Nagarhole forests ever day with hundreds of villagers.
Though the forest department secures the boundaries by creating elephant proof trenches, the villagers fill them up to take their cattle across to the forests. The same paths are used by elephants to stray into adjoining fields. The forest department’ s efforts to create waterholes, and build new roads in jungles are also contributing to the pressure on tiger areas, say conservationists.
“In the last two years forest officers are using tankers to fill the waterholes. Earlier the elephants went in search of water and food but now due to the many man-made waterbodies, they don’t travel as much. All civil activity inside the forests must be stopped to reduce the pressure on them,” says K.M. Chinnappa, a conservationist.
“Sometimes a farmer who has lost his crop in an elephant attack is not paid compensation for many weeks. If the money is given on the same day, why would he bother killing them?” asks an expert.
Next: These conflicts are the price we pay for conservation
These conflicts are the price we pay for conservation
Ullas Karanth
The media projection of tigers as rampaging predators bent on hunting down humans is way off the mark. Given that Bandipur-Nagarahole and adjoining reserves in Kerala/Tamil Nadu harbour about 250 to 300 tigers, which amounts to a high density of 10 to 12 tigers/100 sq.km, cases of these big cats hunting down humans to prey on them have been very rare. While there were two cases attributed to an old tigress near Nagarhole in 2006, the three predation cases from Bandipur in the last one week are rare and unique events.
In some sense these conflicts are a price we are paying for the successful tiger conservation. Our focus should be on maintaining and expanding that success in saving the viable populations of tigers and not on saving every individual tiger.
To secure this large population of tigers, some tolerance for conservation and protected areas and some degree of respect for the authority of the forest department among local people living on reserve edges is crucial. So when incidents of human predation occur, the problem animal has to be eliminated quickly because otherwise local anger explodes and undermines conservation.
Identification and removal of the problem animal through trapping or chemical immobilisation is complicated and difficult under free-ranging conditions and due to the intrusion by mobs following attacks on humans by tigers.
On the other hand, elimination of the problem animal that has preyed upon (not just mauled while being cornered) by shooting it in early stages is far easier, and opportunities for doing so should not be missed because of misguided attempts to chemically tranquilise it. Such actions can lead to needless additional loss of human lives and massive undermining of conservation objectives in general.