Tamil Nadu Forest Department finds circumstantial evidence of poisoning in death of tigers (Lead)

Chennai : A Tamil Nadu Forest Department team, set up to probe the death of two tigers near the Avalanche dam in The Niligiris district, has, in its preliminary investigation, found circumstantial evidence indicating that at least one of the big cats had ingested poison.

The Forest Department on Sunday also clarified that that the two dead tigers were male instead of the earlier statement that they were tigresses, and aged three and eight.

Forest officials said that a cattle carcass was found in a decomposed stage near to the carcasses of the two tigers. The Nilgiris' District Forest Officer S. Gowtham told media persons that the tigers would have consumed the meat of the carcass before their deaths.

The Forest officials said that the department is in the process of identifying the owner of the cattle and is conducting inquiries in the neighbouring villages. The post-mortem report of the carcasses of the tigers found that there was meat, porcupine quills, and hair in the stomach. There were also injuries to the vertebral column of one of the tiger and it was due to fight with another animal.

The department is conducting a forensic analysis of the samples of the two tiger carcasses as well as the carcass of the cattle and is awaiting the report. It has also registered a case under the Wildlife Protection Act in Udhagai South Range.

The number of tigers that died in The Nilgiris district has gone to six in the last month alone. On August 17, a tigress was found dead in Madumalai Tiger Reserve. Two cubs were found dead in Sigur range. A seven-year-old tiger was also found dead in a private tea estate in The Nilgiris.

Tamil Nadu Forest Department officials told IANS that the adult tigers could have died due to infighting while the cubs died as they could not survive in forest after their mother abandoned them.