Madikeri: An injured tiger which was tranquilized by Virajpet forest officials in Madikeri died on Sunday after it was being transported to Chamundeshwari Rehabilitation Centre in Mysuru. The tiger was caught on Saturday at a coffee plantation in Sulugodu of the division in Madikeri.
The carcass of the tiger was conducted on Sunday by forest officials and necropsy report is yet to be delivered to ascertain its exact cause of death.
The tiger darting operation began around 1.30 pm while it was darted by vets of the department at around 4.30 pm. Unfortunately, the tiger died on its way to be transported to a rehabilitation centre, around 8.30 pm.
A tiger was sighted in a stream outside Nagarahole Tiger Reserve close to Sulugodu village. The forest staff, after being alerted about the tiger’s presence swung into action to capture it.
“The first two darts missed the animal while the third one was successful. The tiger was hiding behind a bush in a coffee plantation and it required brave effort by the vets to dart it by venturing close to it,” deputy conservator of forests, Virajpet Sivashankar told Deccan Chronicle on Sunday.
When the staff found the tiger, it was injured and had lost stability in its hind legs and Mr Shivashankar suspects that the tiger might have strayed out of Nagarahole after a territorial fight with another tiger but “we found no external injuries on the carcass.”
From the camera trap images, Mr Shivashankar says that this tiger was sighted wandering around few places where many cattle were found dead. The images have been sent to Tiger Cell, Aranya Bhavan in Bengaluru to match the stripes of the big cat to know whether it was the same tiger which used to prey on cattle in the region.
