Two tigers died in the Bitherkad forest range in the Gudalur Forest Division on Tuesday. Poisoning is suspected to be the reason as they had consumed a poisoned wild boar meat.
The Forest Department said that they had received information about the death of a single tiger at Sussex Estate, a land classified as Section-17 land under the Gudalur Janmam Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1969, in Nelakottai beat in Bitherkad Range. The carcass of one sub-adult tigress, and another adult tigress, suspected to be its mother were found less than a 100-meters from each other.
As per the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s Standard Operating Procedures, an area of 500 meters radius surrounding the carcasses were searched, during which time, the partially consumed carcass of a wild boar was found. An investigation around the area of the carcass of the wild boar revealed the pug marks of the two tigers.
During the post-mortems conducted on the carcasses of the two tigers, veterinarians found the remains of the wild boar. They also discovered during analysis of the tigers’ visceral organs that their internal organs had shown similar signs of damage, which were consistent with those of signs of poisoning.
Field Director of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and Conservator of Forests (Nilgiris), D. Venkatesh, told The Hindu the exact chain of events that led to the deaths of the two tigers would become clearer once forensics results from the tests conducted on the tigers’ and the wild boar’s visceral organs, were returned to the Forest Department.
