Tiger Found Dead in MP Forest, State Sees Record Big Cat Fatalities in 2025
With this, the tiger death toll mounted to 55 in 2025, a record big cat fatalities in a year since the project tiger was launched in 1973
Update: 2025-12-29 16:42 GMT
Bhopal: A female adult tiger was found dead in a forest in Sagar district in Madhya Pradesh, officials said on Monday.
With this, the tiger death toll mounted to 55 in 2025, a record big cat fatalities in a year since the project tiger was launched in 1973.
Carcass of the ten-year-old tigress was found near the forested village of Hilgan, falling under Dhana forest range, on Sunday by the local villagers, a senior forest officer said, unwilling to be quoted.
A team of forest officers led by Dhana range forest officer Pratik Srivastav rushed to the spot and retrieved the carcass.
“Preliminary probe findings suggest that the tigress may have been electrocuted by an illegal electric trap, laid by the local villagers to save their crops from wild boars”, the forest officer said.
However, the exact cause of the death could be ascertained only after the necropsy, he added.
According to him, there was no visible injury mark in the carcass.
Deaths of eight of the 55 tigers were attributed to electrocution by illegal electric trap or bush hunting.
Conservationist Ajey Dubey expressed concern over deaths of a record 55 tigers in a year in MP, which has earned the tag of ‘Tiger State’ for having the largest number of big cats in the country.
The state has witnessed a steady increase in tiger deaths in the past several years.
According to official data, 34 tigers died in 2021, 43 in 2022, 45 in 2023, 46 in 2024 and 55 tigers died in the current year till December 28.