DNA Matches Tie Captured Tiger to Two Maharashtra Deaths

 Hyderabad: A young male tiger that roamed between Maharashtra and Telangana forests, and was captured in Maharashtra on December 31, has been confirmed as the big cat that killed two persons in the neighbouring state. He spend the rest of his life in captivity.

DNA tests on samples collected from the tiger’s victims in Maharashtra matched with samples of tiger hair found near one of its victims, in tests done at Hyderabad’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. The two human kills were reported from Maharashtra’s Virur forest range in central Chandra forest division, according to Maharashtra forest officials.

Forest officials in Telangana said the samples collected from a 21-year-old woman victim killed by a tiger on November 29, 2024, in the Kagaznagar forest division of KB Asifabad district were inconclusive as they indicated that it was a female tiger that attacked the victim.

“We are quite certain that it was the same male tiger captured in Maharashtra which involved in the Asifabad incident, as the tiger seen in the area was confirmed as a male through direct sighting by our staff,” district forest officer Neeraj Kumar Tibrewal said.

The same tiger is believed to have also attacked a 35-year-old man, also in the Kagaznagar forests, on November 30.

Pawan Kumar Jong, the Rajura sub-divisional forest officer in Maharashtra, confirmed the test results to Deccan Chronicle, saying that the captured tiger was the only male in Virur forest range where the two human deaths – that of a 50-year-old man, and a 60-year-old woman — were reported from on December 21, and on December 23. The tiger is currently at the transit treatment centre (TTC) at Chandrapur and permission has been sought to move it to the Gorewada zoo where it will be housed then onwards, he said.

Around the time when two people were killed by the tiger in Virur forest areas, there were also reports of a female tiger and that it was moving around with the male.

The captured tiger, believed to be around three years of age, is larger than other males of its age, and this could be attributed to it feeding, and feeding well, mostly on cattle during its long meandering walk that began in Bor wildlife sanctuary, then into Telangana’s KB Asifabad district, before it made its way back into Maharashtra where it was eventually captured near Anthargaon village in Virur forest range.