HYDERABAD: In what could set alarm bells ringing, missing tigers along the borders of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh are ending up in the hands of poachers.
Wildlife activists said there was lack of monitoring on missing tigers even as the tiger corridor area of Kawal and the borders of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh have become dens for poachers. Another worry is the state government’s failure to set up Tiger Protection Force (TPF) though the proposal was mooted in 2019.
Out of 103 tiger deaths reported in India in 2021, Telangana accounted for three. According to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), big cat deaths in Telangana happened outside the tiger reserves, indicating that newer tiger habitats had been left unguarded. On October 30, two poachers — Kotnaka Dev Rao and Godugu Avinash — were apprehended for possessing a tiger skin at Kagaznagar.
In another instance, a tiger that was poached in Indravelli was captured on a camera trap in 2020 and has been untraceable since a year. State wildlife officials said: “We are suspecting that tiger to be from Tippeswar in Maharashtra. It was ensnared in cotton fields of Indravelli range. We have sent the photographs of the stripes to Tippeswar DFO for identification. Most of them are not resident tigers.”
Senior IFS officer Sidhanand Kukrety said many tigers in the region are visiting tigers and not resident tigers and that they come from Maharashtra. “A team of trackers continuously tracks a big cat from the time it comes on their radar. The Indravelli and Kagaznagar areas are dotted with 29 villages because of which the possibility of wild animal-human conflict is more. To protect their fields, locals put up snares for wild boars,” he told TOI.
He said the third tiger death was reported along Chhattisgarh border and police made the arrest of the accused. Notwithstanding the forest officials’ claims, Mirza Karim Baig of Forests and Wildlife Protection Society said poaching of tigers was a well organised operation. “The poachers are well aware of tiger movement and lay the traps to poach it. The Telangana government should immediately set up TPF and deploy them in both Amarabad and Kawal tiger reserves and its corridors,” he said. However, Kawal Tiger Reserve officials said they conduct nakabandi to keep tabs on the movement of poachers.
