Jubilee Post News & Views
Jubilee News Desk
LUCKNOW: Death of a adult tigress in Kishanpur of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve has many angles and one of them being ‘love-n-hate’ is being discussed by forest staff has drawn attention of many.
Though no official comment has come on why the death took place as none saw the killing but apparently the tigress was killed by some feline who could overpower her and in the fight she lost her life. But this fight has to have a reason because two wild cats would rarely come together.
If they are adult male they wont come near each other and stay in territory defined by their own self. If one is male and another female they do come close for some time which could range from 3 to 5 days to mate. But this does not result in to killing of one, as in some spider species it has been heard.
“Its rare but can happen. If the two do not adjust to each other they may fight over and in this fierce struggle lives can be lost,” said Dr Rahul Shukla, former honorary wildlife warden at Dudhwa who has written books on tigers of the region.
Well this could be a reason for the death, experts say and are mussing over the ‘love-n-hate’ angle, but as none saw the entire episode so no formal comments.
As the sequence of events goes her body was spotted at around 8 am by the field staff. The injury marks primarily suggested it died during fight with another wild animal and the post mortem examination confirmed it. The Dudhwa forest officials informed media.
Senior officials reached the spot to check if poaching was the reason and got the area scanned by dog squad and also by staff but nothing else than injury mark on the body of the feline was seen.
The wild cat had marks of injury near the neck region and they were made during struggle. The internal organs too were intact hence the possibility of poaching was ruled out for now. Toxicology tests will be done later.
“This could also be a result of an attempt to overpower each other during mating. Tigress usually mates once in two years,” said Ram Lakhan Singh, another expert on tigers and former chief wildlife warden.
Uttar Pradesh have not many tigers hence the death has alarmed forest department. If this was a reason for the death then apart from the usual poaching attempts they will have to find out what goes between the feline and check such murder attempts among the animals too. But poaching can be stopped not such fights which will happen in secluded forest pockets, away from the eyes of the patrol teams.
