Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, 6 April 2020:In a successful attempt at defusing a critical conflict situation in which a tiger had killed two persons on 3 April, our Rapid Response Team of veterinarian, social scientist and biologist swung into action. Within a few hours, the veterinarian managed to tranquilise and capture the tiger and move it to a safe location.

One of the 50 Project Tiger Reserves in India, Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR) is a hotspot of human – tiger conflicts with some unfortunate fatalities reported on either side. Wildlife Trust of India has been working here at PTR since 2009 addressing conflict mitigation through the tried and tested successful model of Rapid Response Teams (RRT) .

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WTI has also trained Primary Response Teams comprising local resource persons from the surrounding community to identify potential conflicts often even before they blow up into major conflicts leading to human and tiger deaths. This is done by reporting the conflict to the Rapid Response Team who work in tandem with the Field Director (Pilibhit Tiger Reserve) and his team to resolve the conflict.

While India was under countrywide lockdown, on the 3^rd of April, two men who had been sleeping in the open had been dragged by this tiger, in the early hours of dawn and one of them decapitated clean and skulled. Working in accordance with the National Tiger Conservation Authority Standard Operating Procedures (NTCA SOP), 10 camera traps laid earlier (since the first kill) had helped determine that all the four kills were by the same male tiger. The NTCA SOP required that the Chief Wildlife Warden (CWLW) of Uttar Pradesh be informed and his permission be taken for sedating the tiger. With four confirmed kills by the same tiger, the Field Director got the permission for tranquilizing and capturing the tiger on a war footing that morning and WTI’s RRT was rushed here at CWLW’s request.

By 1:30PM, WTI’s veterinarian Dr Daksha Gangwar successfully sedated and tranquilized this healthy young adult which had already caused four human deaths in the village settlements bordering the tiger reserve.

“This capture was possible thanks to excellent teamwork between the Primary Response Team who helped us in crowd control, the Forest Department also took a very active role in managing this conflict and were very serious about this operation from day one,” he said.

“Examination of the sedated tiger revealed healthy claws and teeth”, added Dr. Daksha .

The tiger was then moved in a standard transportation cage to the Forest Rest House in Gada, about 15 km away and then onwards to Kanpur Zoo. As directed by the Chief Wildlife Warden, the tiger will be kept under observation for 30 days at the zoo before a call is taken on releasing it back to the wild or placing it under life time care.

“The way the tiger was making its kill is reminiscent of young adult tigers who are still not very proficient, and often are not yet experts at cutting open a kill efficiently, especially if it is an unnatural one like humans. It’s behavior at its last kill however was quite disturbing, and therefore called for placing it under observation in a captive setting” surmised Mayukh Chatterjee, Head of WTI’s Conflict Mitigation Division on the decision to keep the tiger under observation