Lakhimpur Kheri tiger kills its 7th victim

LAKHIMPUR KHERI: Tiger terror rules half-a-dozen villages around Mailani forest range along the Uttar Pradesh-Uttarakhand border after seven people were mauled to death in the region since February.

Forest officials could not confirm if one or more tigers were attacking villagers, but they ruled out chances of the predator being a maneater as all the victims were left behind.

“The primary aim now is to tranquillise, catch and release the animal back in the forests,” Lucknow division chief conservator of forests Eva Sharma said.

Foresters on foot and on elephant-back were scouring the dense forests to trace and trap the killer tiger, after a 58-year-old villager, Baburam of Chhedipur, was killed on Saturday. The mutilated body was recovered late at night.

More trackers were pressed into the tiger’s trail as Baburam became the third casualty in five days since August 15.

South Kheri divisional forest officer Sanjay Biswal said on Monday wild animals have ventured out of the forest for safety and food after heavy monsoon rain flooded large pockets of Mailani range. This has increased the risk of man-animal conflicts.

“The presence of a tiger and a tigress was reported in the area. But it is hard to say if both or one of them is involved in the attacks,” he said.

Located close to Dudhwa national park and tiger reserve at the Himalayan foothills, the predators sometimes stray into human habitation on the fringes of Mailani range in Lakhimpur Kheri district.

A 50km-corridor separates Dudhwaand-Mailani, which serves as a buffer zone for Kishanpur sanctuary of the tiger reserve. Dudhwa and Kishanpur collectively have more than 150 tigers; hugely territorial and solitary animals that prowl a large area for prey. Tigers rarely attack humans if not provoked, or if there is no shortage of natural prey such as swamp deer and wild boars in case of Dudhwa’s big cats. Old and infirm tigers, however, prey on easy targets such as livestock and people.

Sugarcane plantations in the area offer ideal cover for tigers, and wild boars are found in abundance in such fields as they love to eat the sweet roots.

The spate of killings has worried forest officials because Mailani range has last reported a fatal tiger attack way back in June 2012.

Elephants from Dudhwa were deployed for an intensive combing operation to identify and trap the rogue predators. Teams from the World Wildlife Fund are helping the foresters.

Camera traps have been installed to monitor the movement of tigers, and three trap cages were placed too, Biswal said.

People living in the fringe villages have been asked not to go near or inside the forest. Farmers were advised to work in groups in cropland located near the woods.

Most of the victims are either youngsters or elderly. On August 15, a 14-year-old girl was killed when she had gone with her mother to the forest to tend their goats.

A 60-year-old from Chhedipur village was attacked and killed four days later when he was tilling his fields near the forest. Fellow farmers found the savaged corpse.

A tiger is declared maneater if it has killed and wounded human for prey, and showed a tendency to enter villages again and again.

Conservationist KK Mishra said the Mailani predator cannot be called a maneater because the killings were reported either inside forests or in fringe areas.

(With inputs from HTC Lucknow)