Forest authorities act after two tiger-related deaths in Pilibhit
PILIBHIT: In the wake of two fatal man-tiger encounters in Pilibhit — on May 13 in village
Nazirganj
and on May 18 in village Haripur Kishanpur — the PCCF (Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Wildlife) of UP, Anuradha Vemuri, took serious note of SOP violations.
On Monday, she directed
Pilibhit Tiger Reserve
's (PTR) field director, Vijay Singh, to submit a detailed report within 12 hours. She also instructed
Dudhwa Tiger Reserve
field director H Rajamohan to deploy experienced personnel to track the tigers responsible and identify them through pugmark analysis.
Shahjahanpur assistant conservator
Sushil Kumar
failed in tracing and measuring pugmarks in both cases — crucial steps for identifying the tigers' sex, age, and whether one or two animals were involved.
Vemuri also sought an explanation from Khutar Range Officer Manoj Shrivastav for his absence at both conflict sites.
The villagers of the two affected villages in Pilibhit, which come under the jurisdiction of Khutar forest range of Shahjahanpur, repeatedly alerted forest officials regarding a month-long prowling of a tigress and a tiger in agricultural fields, but no remedial action was taken. The locals alleged that this apathetic attitude of forest officials was responsible for the loss of two lives.
Forest personnel placed a cage in Nazirganj village near the spot of the fatal conflict, but without any live or inanimate bait — which villagers termed a deceptive measure. It is also strange that the camera traps installed near the two conflict spots failed to capture any images of the killer felines. The PCCF (Wildlife) said that as the concerned rural pocket was in proximity to the junction point of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve and
Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary
of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, field forest teams of the two forest areas were constituted and deployed in the two villages.
She said that once the feline was identified, immediate permission to tranquilise him or her would be granted.
'A team from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) was also sent to the spot to check the camera installation and to set up ANIDERS (Animal Intrusion Detection and Repellent System) in a bid to trace the felines,' she added.
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