Tiger shot dead after killing another woman | Janaki Lenin

A tiger released in a wildlife sanctuary in south India has been shot dead on Sunday after it killed a woman. The animal was released in Bhimgad wildlife sanctuary, Karnataka, on 19 November. The young tiger, suspected to have killed a woman in Pandaravalli village 186 miles away, was caught and released in the sanctuary. A large contingent of forest officials camped at Bhimgad to ensure it didn’t trouble villagers and also protect the tiger from people. Officials said the tiger did not pose a threat to human life. But tiger biologist Ullas Karanth had warned it was not safe to release the animal as it seemed to have lost fear of humans. Despite the number of people keeping a watch on the tiger’s activity and the GPS transmitter around its neck, it remained elusive. The transmitter stopped functioning soon after the animal’s release, and tracking the animal using the backup VHF radio transmitter in hilly dense forests was difficult. Nervous villagers reported seeing the tiger in various places. One villager raised an alarm when a tiger tried to take his cow at Tirthakunde village, but fellow villagers thought it was a leopard. On Monday 22 December, a student of Visvesvaraya Technology University (VTU) on the outskirts of Belgaum, out for a morning jog, spotted a tiger on the grounds. The deputy conservator of forests was confident the animal wasn’t a tiger but a leopard. He thought the tiger he had spent the past month tracking was elsewhere, perhaps in Goa, across the state border. While the forest officials tried to confirm where the animal was hiding, it leaped over the fence and disappeared. On the evening of Christmas Eve, a 23-year-old pregnant woman, who had gone to a stream to fetch water, disappeared. Her family found blood stains and broken bangles strewn around and launched a search. Late that night, villagers found the tiger guarding her body. They chased the cat away and retrieved the corpse. Was it the same tiger? Was the tiger at VTU, nine miles away, another animal? Forest officials later confirmed the tiger that killed the woman and the one at VTU were indeed the same animal they had released in mid-October. Orders to kill the tiger were issued. About 300 armed personnel from the forest department, police, and paramilitary went looking for the animal. Trap cages were deployed. With radio collar technology failing, four Soliga tribals from southern Karnataka tracked the tiger the age-old way: by reading paw prints, scratches, and other signs. Reports of tiger sightings by alert villagers sent the hunting teams scrambling but the tiger remained at large. Finally, four days after the woman was killed, one of the teams shot the tiger dead. Meanwhile, the issue became politicised. The state home minister’s son, Rana George, a member of the state wildlife board, was part of the local committee that recommended the tiger’s relocation. Vinay Luthra, the state’s chief wildlife warden, heeded the committee’s recommendation rather than the warning issued by a tiger expert. The leader of the opposition demanded the crime investigation department investigate if the forest officials had been negligent. What did the forest department achieve by releasing this animal? The exercise has traumatised villagers for more than a month and tragically cost the life of a young woman. Neither has it done wonders for tiger conservation. Villagers near Shivamogga town, about 186 miles away from Bhimgad, are demanding the removal of a tiger that killed a cow. The misguided effort to give another chance to one tiger has ensured people and other tigers have lost.