Telangana Tiger deaths: Foresters relieved as search finds tigress, cub pug marks

HYDERABAD: The second day of searching for a tigress and three of her cubs in the Komaram Bheem Asifabad district forests yielded some fresh hope with pug marks of an adult tiger and a cub.

Elsewhere, forest department officials took into custody six persons, including two minors, from two villages and a hamlet surrounding the Dairgaon forest beat on suspicion that they had a role to play in poisoning an ox, on which two tigers, one cub and an adult male, had fed and died last week.

It was learnt that the suspects were picked up from Ringiretu hamlet under Velgi gram panchayat and from Sarkepally and Dairgaon villages. Two of them are suspected to have poisoned the ox carcass. Sources said that an herbicide was sprayed on the carcass by the suspects.

Meanwhile, the incident has thrown fresh focus on the conflict in Kagaznagar forest area and the rest of the KB Asifabad district between people and tigers. The biggest problem, according to villagers, is that their cattle have no grazing scope outside of the forest.

The problem is compounded by the fact that almost all of the natural prey of tigers, deer and wild boar, have been killed by poachers over the years.

Villagers complain that they have been losing cattle regularly to tigers. When a cow or a buffalo is killed, the compensation is not being paid on time. Forest department officials, on the field, and in the headquarters in Hyderabad, admit to problems related to timely compensation for cattle kills, saying funds are hard to come by from the government for the purpose.

“There is no help for us to find grass for our cattle, and we have to take the animals into the forest,” Athram Jagnathrao of Sarkepally village said. “And when summer comes, there is water shortage for the animals and we depend on the ‘bugga and jalapatham (a spring and a small waterfall)’ in the forest for our cattle,” he said.

This water source is also where the tigers come to quench their thirst in summers, and once the seasonal water sources dry up after the rainy season ends.

Another villager, also from Sarkepally, Athram Lahcchu said that around 10 hamlets and villages depend on the forest for grazing their cattle and for watering them. He said there could be around 1,000 cattle in the area that graze in the forest.