Adilabad: The forest department on Wednesday launched a search operation with 70 personnel divided into teams for the missing tigers in the Darigaon forest area where carcasses of two tigers were found in the one week in Kagaznagar mandal in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district.
According to officials, the staff did not find the tigers but they had identified pugmarks of a cub and also fresh cattle kill at a nearby place in the forest, which will help in the search operation.
The officials said that they had paid compensation to the owners of the fresh cattle kill in the same locality. The forest staff put up camera traps in the area where they had earlier found tiger movements. They went into the deep forest tracking the tigers’ movement towards Sarikepalli in Wankidi mandal.
It is said that villagers have expressed their concern about the frequent cattle kills happening in the area where tiger deaths took place but the field staff neglected their pleas and instead asked them not to go into the wild a month ago.
It is a traditional practice for Adivasis to go into forests to collect bamboo and firewood minor forest products to make a living. It is alleged that there was a huge delay in the payment of compensation to the owners of the cattle killed by the tigers in the area.
