Meandering Tiger Gives the Slip Again

Hyderabad: The wandering tiger that created sensation by making an appearance in the Yadadri-Bhongir district three days ago, appears to have yet again given the forest department the slip.

The tiger, practically playing hide-and-seek with foresters over two months as it meandered through ten districts, leaving behind nothing more than a few pugmarks, had killed two calves near Ibrahimpur in M. Turkapalle mandal of Yadadri-Bhongir district. It made off with one of the carcasses, and apparently disappeared into thin air.

On Tuesday, “as part of the All India Tiger Estimation, we were on trail walks in the forest patch near Ibrahimpur. We found some pugmarks but no other signs of the tiger. It may have left the area but in which direction, we are not certain as of now,” Yadadri-Bhongir district forest officer D. Sudhakar Reddy said. “We are hoping that we will get some information about its whereabouts in the next day or so.

If the tiger decides to head south, it might go towards Nalgonda district and hopefully into the Amrabad tiger reserve which extends into Nalgonda. If it decides to go west, then it might end up in the forest patches near Keesara.

Or may be it has gone north retracing its path. “We are not just sure,” a forest department official said when asked where the tiger might be or which direction it might be headed next. The problem was there are no significant forest areas where it could probably stay put, it is just open land, villages and small towns all around

So far, the tiger, believed to be a young male, has crossed KB Asifabad, Mancherial, Nirmal, Jagtial, Rajanna-Siricilla, Kamareddy, Siddipet, Karimnagar, Peddapalle, and mde its way to Yadadri-Bhongir district.