Maharashtra: Another tigress found dead, now in Pench tiger reserve

Days after the death of a tigress in the Melghat tiger project, yet another big cat was found dead in the Pench tiger reserve near Nagpur on Wednesday. This has taken the recorded death toll of tigers in Maharashtra to four.

A forest official said on Wednesday that their field staff had found a semi-putrified body of a tiger in a slushy patch of land in the Bandra beat in the Deolapar range of the Pench tiger reserve. “The tiger may have found himself in quicksand while on a hunt,” the official said. The Pench tiger project has around 40 tigers.

The deceased tiger, a female, was found with all four legs and face stuck in mud and may have died due to suffocation caused by drowning. All body parts were intact and a search in a 500-metre radius did not unearth anything suspicious like traps. The images of the tigress had been captured in camera traps on NH-7.

On Sunday, staff at the Melghat tiger project had found the dead body of a tigress, who was aged around 10 years, in the Akot range.

Wednesday’s mortality has taken the number of tiger deaths in Maharashtra to four, including a female cub on January 3 in Pench and Chikhaldara in Melghat on January 4.

In 2018, Maharashtra recorded 20 tiger fatalities, out of the 94 nationwide. In 2017, the number of tiger deaths in the state stood at 21 and the numbers were 15 in 2016, 12 in 2015, seven in 2014 and 10 in 2013.

According to the 2014 tiger census, India has 2,226 tigers, up from 1,706 in 2010. Maharashtra has around 190 such big cats, more than the figure of 169 in 2010. This increased to 203 in the phase-IV camera trapping exercise in 2014-15. Maharashtra has six tiger reserves, namely Tadoba Andhari, Pench, Bor, Sahyadri, Melghat and Navegaon Nagzira and a healthy number of tigers outside protected areas (PA) as well.