WTI Assists in Rescue of Sub-adult Tiger from Fringe Village of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve
The tiger, a sub-adult male, had moved out of the Mahof range of Pilibhit TR and into Mallpur Khajuria Village about a kilometre from the edge of the forest. It entered the home of a villager named Jagdish at around 7.30am; Jagdish’s wife was making tea in the kitchen area when she saw the tiger and raised the alarm, waking her husband. The family fled the house and a large crowd of villagers gathered around it as news spread of the cat’s presence, effectively trapping the animal within.
A team from the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department reached the spot shortly after. The local police department was called in to manage the crowd and WTI’s UP Big Cat Conflict Mitigation Project team was also intimated.
The tiger, meanwhile, was moving from room to room inside the house. The RRT assisted forest department personnel in fixing a net over one of the house’s two exits, and setting up a trap cage with a live goat as bait in front of the other. As the tiger did not enter the cage, veterinarians were called in and eventually Dr Utkarsh Shukla from Lucknow Zoo successfully tranquilised the tiger through a window.
“The job was only half done since we still had to get the animal to safety”, Prem Chandra Pandey added. “This was proving difficult since the villagers were very agitated; it took a lathi-charge from the police to disperse the crowd and allow us to leave the area.”
The tiger was brought to the Mustafabad Forest Rest House at around 8pm. The District Magistrate of Pilibhit Mr Masoom Ali Sarvar arrived, and the RRT and forest department personnel took to the tiger to a release site deep into the forests of the Mahof range, where it was subsequently released at around 8.30pm.
