Karnataka: Tiger deaths increasing, but officials say it's only normal

Chamarajanagar: While wildlife activists are worried by the deaths of as many as 21 tigers, including a cub in the Bandipur and Rajiv Gandhi tiger reserves between January 2016 and January this year, forest officials are not willing to press the panic button, saying the number of big cats dying is not a worry considering the number of them still roaming the reserves.

While most died of natural causes, some tigers were killed by poachers or were trapped in snares laid for other animals. One is believed to have died of an alleged overdose of tranquilisers.

When contacted, APCCF Rangaraoy argued that this rate of mortality was normal among the tigers given the fact that Bandipur had about 150 of them and Nagarhole, around 80. "Some have died of natural causes and new cubs have replaced the dead," he said.

Going by the officer, a six- year- old tigress was found dead with its spine snapped in a snare set for a wild boar on a coffee estate near Srimangala in Kodagu district, on the border of Nagarhole.

And the department has sought a report from a lab to determine whether a tiger died of an overdose of a tranquiliser in Antharasanthe range of the Nagarhole National on January 16, this year, according to him.

In another incident, a tiger was shot dead by a poacher in the Maddur range of Bandipur in August last year, and has since been arrested. "The poacher shot the tiger mistaking it to be a Sambar near a waterhole," the officer said. In one more case of poaching in Gundre in Bandipur, a tiger's carcass was found with its parts removed and another big cat was poached in Chikkamagaluru territorial division. Meanwhile, two tigers were poisoned in the Umblebyl range of Shivamogga last year.

Also, an injured tiger died as it was being shifted from the Nugu backwaters to the Bannerghatta National Park on January 13 this year, and another tiger, rescued from Nagarhole , died at the rehabilitation centre in Koorgally in Mysuru, where it was being taken care of, the officer explained.