Pesticide latest threat to big cats

 

The Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve has lost a tiger and leopard to poisoning this year. A putrefied tiger carcass was found lying on the border of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, close to Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve on  February 16. The tiger was found to be poisoned. Four persons were arrested for poisoning a leopard on the Sathyamangalam forest periphery in March this year, says Sathyamangalam District Forest Officer K.Rajkumar.

 

"Old tigers and leopards which grow weak and are unable to hunt, may take to killing cattle bred by villagers abutting forest boundaries. The villagers get infuriated over losing their cattle which is their main source of livelihood and tend to take revenge by killing them. They poison the carcass with insecticide and the big cat that comes to eat its kill dies instantly," said K. Mohan Raj of the Tamil Nadu Green Movement.

 

A fortnight ago on September 25, a male leopard was poisoned by a farmer in Mettupalayam. The farmer, V. Nanjan, 52, from Kallar village poisoned the seven year old male leopard to avenge the loss of his cattle. The leopard had mauled his two cows to death. He poured insecticide into the carcass of the cow to kill the big cat. "This is the first incident of poisoning death to be reported in the Coimbatore forests in the last few years.

 

The situation is not alarming and there is nothing to worry," says Coimbatore district forest officer M. Senthil Kumar. However, conservationists and animal activists are perturbed over the rising incidence of poisoning of big cats. They want the forest department to take stern action to curb such tiger killing. It is not enough if poachers are kept at bay, poisoning villagers should also be sternly dealt with, they say.

 

In an earlier incident in the first week of May, four persons, who had brought tiger and leopard skins to Coimbatore from Kodaikanal to sell to a potential customer, had confessed that they had poached the animals by poisoning. "It is an organised network of smugglers. We are on the lookout for a few more persons in the case," said a forest department official.

 

The jungles of Moyar valley, known for a large presence of tigers, also witnessed at least two incidents of tiger deaths due to suspected poisoning so far this year. 

A tiger was found dead in the Thengumarahada jungles in May while another tiger died in the north Nilgiri division on January 21. According to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), 11 tigers have died due to different reasons so far this year in Tamil Nadu as against just two last year and five the previous year.

 

While tiger mortality has come down across India with 47 incidents so far this year as against 63 last year and 72 the previous year, it has increased manifold in Tamil Nadu, worrying wild life conservationists.