Sulthan Bathery: One more tiger has fallen in the trap laid by the forest department at Choorimala, under the South Wayanad Forest Division, here in the wee hours of Saturday. The tiger is being shifted from Choorimala village to the Animal Hospices premises at Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, Sulthan Bathery.
This is the third animal trapped by the South Wayanad Forest division limits in two months. A cage was set at the farm where the tiger had killed a cow the other day. The tiger had killed another cow in the same locality.
The cage was laid on Friday, soon after the second kill, according to wildlife officials. The animal attempted to break the iron bars of the cage in fury when officials tried to click its pictures for identification. The forest guards have kept the cage covered for the time being. If the animal gets disturbed and continues to be violent, it is likely to sustain more injuries.
According to South Wayanad DFO Shajna Karim, the identity of the animal is yet to be established due to lack of pictures.
The animal had killed and devoured the cow of Thanattukudiyil Rajan in the wee hours of Friday. The animal seemed to be healthy as the prey was carried off to the nearby Beenachi Coffee Plantation. The remains were found by the family during a search conducted in the morning. Three months ago, a milch cow belonging to Rajan was also killed and devoured by an animal suspected to be the same tiger.
Problems of ageing, deteriorating quality of forests, lack of palliative care facilities for animals, and diminishing prey species have been haunting the forest department personnel in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) and adjacent wildlife zones of the South Wayanad and North Wayanad forest divisions. The animal hospice and palliative care facility in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary has six big cats, which is two more than its carrying capacity.
According to wildlife experts, there was a boom in tiger population between 2010 and 2015 that resulted in a jump in the number of tigers to 120. Most of the animals are aged now and are fighting for survival.
Tigers are in the habit of marking their domains known as ‘home ranges’ either by urinating or by feces, to let another tiger know that the range is already occupied, forcing the aged and unhealthy to migrate outside the jungle zones, increasing the human-animal conflict.
