Tiger cub rescued in Ballarpur forest range this week dies during treatment: Official

NAGPUR: A female tiger cub being treated at Chandrapur’s Wildlife Transit Treatment Centre after being rescued from the Ballarpur forest range of Chandrapur died on Saturday morning. The cub was spotted by forest guards on patrol duty near the carcass of two cubs in the Kalamna on September 7.

The cub hadn’t been eating and was intravenously administered saline, said Jitendra Ramgaonkar, chief conservator of forest, Chandrapur Circle. The Toadoa-Andhari Tiger Reserve, which has about 130 big cats, is in Chandrapur.

Officials said the cubs found dead by local forest guards were about four months old. A five-member team has been formed to trace their mother.

“The tigress had probably gone hunting and then probably got lost in the jungle and so the cubs were left alone. Forest staffers knew about the three lonely cubs and were observing their movement but two cubs were most likely killed by some wild animal and one later died at the wildlife TTC,” said Ramgaonkar. He further stated that forest officials were trying hard to locate the missing tigress.

This was the second case of cubs being found dead this month after two cubs were found dead in the buffer zone of Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Maharashtra’s Nagpur district last week. Last month an adult leopard and its two cubs were electrocuted after coming in contact with live wires laid to kill wild boars in Gondia district of eastern Maharashtra.