ADILABAD: Forest officials of Mancherial exhumed the carcass of a male tiger in the forest area of Pinnaram village in Kotapalli mandal on Saturday. They said that the tiger’s skin and nails were intact.
Forest officials said they got information about the death of the tiger and traced the carcass which was buried in the sand in a rivulet in Pinnaram village.
They said that the tiger was captured in camera traps on 10.40 pm on November 17 at Pangidi Somaram village.
Kawal Tiger Reserve chief conservator Sanjay Guptha visited the spot where the carcass of the tiger was buried and inquired about the incident. Forest officials had failed to deploy animal trackers and watchers in the areas where tiger movements were found.
Some of the tigers, which migrated to Bejjur area from Tadoba Tiger Reserve of bordering Maharashtra, disappeared suddenly and it was not sure whether those tigers were killed by poachers or had returned to their home.
Smell led locals to carcass of a tiger
Forests officials had claimed that nine tigers were moving in the Sirpur (T) and Bejjur mandals in the Sirpur (T) Assembly constituency. The tigers had migrated to these places from Tadoba Andhari tiger reserve in Maharashtra.
Recently, they seized a tiger skin in Bejjur and arrested two persons. Subsequently, four more were arrested in Maharashtra in connection with the tiger skin. It is a general practice for poachers to skin the dead tiger after killing it. They remove the skin and nails for which there is good demand in the international market. But this hasn’t happened in the present case.
Villagers detected bad smell emanating from the area and informed the matter to forest officials.
It is also said that the tiger might have accidentally come in contact with the live electric wires put up by farmers; and the farmers may have tried to save their skin by burying the dead tiger in the sand. A photograph had also gone viral of a tiger found dead with a trap clamp, stating that it was same tiger whose carcass was exhumed. Imran Siddiqui of Hyderabad Tiger Conservation Society (Hyticos) said the forest officials had failed to take serious action against the farmers for putting up live electric wires. He alleged that forest officials are not focusing on the protection of tigers found in the erstwhile Adilabad district.
It is also said that the tiger might have accidentally come in contact with the live electric wires put up by farmers and the farmers may have tried to save their skin by burying the dead tiger in the sand.
