Tiger kills villager near Bandipur

 

Bangalore: A villager, who was grazing his cattle near the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, was attacked and killed by a tiger on Wednesday morning.

 

A passerby, who saw the attack, rushed to the village to get men to rescue the cattle grazer. But by the time the rescuers arrived, Basavraju, 45, from Medadi village in H.D. Kote taluk, had been badly mauled, and died soon after.

 

Forest officials said the tiger did not intend to kill the farmer as it first attacked the cow and later Basavraju, who was holding the rope tied to the cow. 

 

“The tiger pugmarks have been taken from the site of the attack and the postmortem report confirmed that the attack was carried out by a tiger. There are deep injuries, caused by the claws of the tiger, on the victim’s head.

 

The tiger, however, has not eaten flesh from his body,” said C. Srinivasalu, Director, Project Tiger, Mysore. The family of the deceased will given Rs 5 lakh as compensation, he said.

 

Conservationists once again warned that grazing activities by villagers well inside tiger habitats have led to such attacks as big cats attack cattle, which are easy prey.

 

“It requires only 10% of the efforts for any tiger to kill a cow than killing a bounding spotted deer. “The local administration does not stop farmers from going inside the forests fearing political pressure. Cows and goats have become regular target for wild cats,” said a conservationist from Kodagu.

 

Srinivasalu admitted that villagers regularly sneak into tiger reserves for grazing their cattle, but forest guards keep an eye on such incidents. “Whenever we see cowherds, we warn them to keep off the reserves. But these incidents cannot be prevented completely,” he said.