Carcasses of 2 tigers, jumbo shock Bandipur National Park officials

Chamarajangar: In a disturbing find, forest officials of the Bandipur National Park came across two carcasses of tigers, one male and a female, in a bush in the Hirikere forest area of the Gopalaswamy Betta range of the Bandipur National Park on Thursday and  discovered the carcass of a female elephant just 50 metres away. The male tiger is thought to be around three -years- old  and the female two. The dead elephant is believed to be 25 years old.  While its thought the jumbo  died a week ago, forest officials say the tigers may have died about four days ago. 

As the carcasses were  badly decomposed, forest veterinarian, Nagaraj, who conducted the necropsy on them, could not arrive at the exact cause of the animals’ deaths. While some claim they could have been poisoned by locals,  forest officials are  not saying anything until they receive a report from the laboratories that are examining the body samples. Park director, Ambady Madhav said the internal organs of the animals had been sent for tests to the Forensic Laboratory in Madivala, Bengaluru and the National Centre for Biological Sciences, GKVK, in the city to establish their cause of death. 

“We do not know how the animals died as the carcasses were badly decomposed and the tigers’ neck portion had been eaten by worms,” said a forest official. Portions of the elephant’s carcass too had been eaten by scavenging animals, which made the  veterinarian’s task even more difficult.