Maneating tigress of Moradabad

[Nainitalguru]

It's a pity that this tiger has become a man eater. Many factors and we do not the main cause for her change in her dietary habit. Once a man eater , always a man eater , hence she needs to be put down. Sad but unfortunately that's reality.

[skeetshot]

UPDATE:


http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/bijn ... ess-485737

[prashantsingh]

UPDATE:


http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/bijn ... ess-485737

OT
I think I saw your photograph , Sir, somewhere with the CNN crew.

Wonder how much area this little craft covers in one sortie.

[huntergill]

A goat herder is taken by a tiger few days back in corbett, any confirmation on the killer.

[skeetshot]

That "goatherder"was none other than Kirpal, who was often hired by the RamGanga Resorts as a Gilly for Mahaseer fishing near Marchulla.

He had taken his goats for grazing when he bumped into a tigress with cubs. The cubs attacked his goats.

The rest is conjecture: Whether he shouted or charged the cubs with his stick or threw stones at them.

Whatever, the tigress gave him one blow with her forepaw, and the helpful young man died on the spot.

The villagers sitting near the tea stall on the road saw Kirpal's dog rush madly out of the jungle and sensing something not right, went towards the river and saw his body.

[GNV]

Then this Tigress with cubs is obviously not the maneater of Moradabad.

[skeetshot]

No, this is a normal tigress, very protective of her cubs who were only doing what comes naturally to them.

The Moradabad tigress -- I dont think we are going to hear much more about her. The long silence on her reports makes me fear for the worst.

[najeeb_khan]

I agree with skeet, it's a normal phenomenon of a parents to protect their offspring.

Probably the tigress might have been poisoned or put to rest by any other means.

[ckkalyan]

Newspaper article Feb 2014 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 540534.cms

Blue-bloods hunt for elusive western UP maneater
Neha Shukla, TNN | Feb 17, 2014, 05.21AM IST

LUCKNOW: With nine killings in 45 days, the elusive maneater of Bijnor is giving a tough time to its 'royal' trackers. Unable to rein in the big cat, believed to be a tigress, forest department had called in members of royal families to help track the predator after she made her fourth kill on January 8. But the animal continues to elude them as terror stalks areas of Bijnore district where the feline made her last few kills.

The swiftness with which the tigress has crossed borders between UP and Uttrakhand, does not support the claim that she is physically deformed or injured. What made her abandon her natural prey and hunt for humans is not fully understood. An infected jaw or mouth could be a possible reason but that is only a conjecture so far.

On February 6, the tigress killed a herdsman, but not his cattle, in the Sahuwala forests of Bijnor district. "Villagers realized that while his cattle returned from the jungle, the man went missing. Later, a human head, a half eaten leg and an arm were found in the forest," said Kunwar Sanjay Singh, registered shooter in Uttarakhand.

Singh hails from a royal family of Moradabad and has shot 10 maneaters, all leopards. This is the first time he is leading a team of shooters to track a maneating tiger. Oval shaped pugmarks at the sight of killings, show it's a tigress. Though its age is being put at 3 to 5 years, there's little certainty about it.

Tracking the maneater along Jim Corbett Park in UP are Prashant Singh from Dehradun, Samarjit Singh, from the royal family of Kuchesar in Bulandshahr and Sudhir Raghav from Naroli in Moradabad.

"A cat family animal breaks the windpipe of its kill and to kill humans that way is easier," said Sanjay Singh.

Royal shooters have been tracking the animal from Jaspur in Bijnor when she was not declared a maneater.

Between December 29 and January 10, she had killed five people in Sambhal, Moradabad and Bijnore. On January 9, forest department declared the tigress a maneater and shooters were called in.

"We could have caught her had the forest department tied the bait in Najibabad on February 6 when she had killed a man," said Singh. But locals got so agitated that police had to be called in and neither bait nor 'machaan' could be set up at the place.

Nawab Shafat Ali Khan, who had shot down a maneater in Faizabad in 2009, left after the forest department did not allow night search.

While the maneating tigress is constantly moving in the Sahuwala compartment, 5 to 6km everyday, shooters confirm the presence of at least two other big cats in this Corbett landscape.

A male's pugmarks have been noticed often and clearly, but locals say it has been in the area for 10-12 years and has not killed. A tigress with her cubs was also present but fresh pugmarks have not been seen.

Director of Jim Corbett Park, Samir Sinha, however, did not say much about the maneating incidents reported from the reserve. "Our first priority is to find out which tiger has caused the killing. Everything else we say about the incidents reported from Corbett depends on identifying the animal first."

UP forest department, meanwhile, has changed the strategy to hunt for the feline. Since Bijnore is a tiger-dominant and dense forest, to ensure that combing does not disturb other animals, department has taken to tracking pugmarks.

"We are now tracking the animal through pugmarks in Najibabad," said conservator, Moradabad, Kamlesh Kumar.

In the last about one-and-a-half month of the tiger search operation, UP has spent about Rs 15 lakh in transportation, lodging and other arrangements put up at the site. Camera traps and impression pads are being used to supplement the efforts.

Disturbed biodiversity to blame

Experts feel there are several reasons behind young tigresses straying in winters.

Former director, Project Tiger, government of India, R L Singh, said, "Winter is mating season. Young tigresses who mature after three years of age are pushed out by mothers or old tigresses. In a bid to form their own territory, the young ones stray."

Tiger conservationist Valmik Thapar said stray tigers are a common phenomenon all year round. "I would simply say manhandling of tigers is the reason behind incidents of straying. Human interference in forest, relocation of tigers, poor management of reserves are some of the reasons."

Stray tigers are a sign of deteriorating biodiversity. Programme coordinator, Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), Tito Joseph said, "To say that all tigers stray because of one reason is not right. To say what is causing big cats in western UP to move out of forest there has to be a proper study of that part of the forest."

News update in Aug 2014

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home ... 321022.cms

For Moradabad man-eater, is man off the menu?
Amit Bhattacharya, TNN | Aug 17, 2014, 10.44AM IST

With the big cat which terrorized four districts of UP earlier this year staying away from human kills, experts are debating whether it's possible for a tiger to change its stripes

On a cold December morning last year, a tiger was discov ered in the middle of what was virtually a human jungle -Mithunpur Mouza village in UP's Sambhal district, some 120 km from the nearest tiger habitat. It was still dark when the striped predator dragged a 21-year-old youth squatting by a pond into a sugarcane field and partially ate the body . For the next 40-odd days, big cat terror reigned in four districts of the state as six more human kills were attributed to this `Man-eater of Moradabad'.

Professional hunters were summoned, camera traps laid, baits placed and even drones pressed into service in one of the most intense animal hunts mounted in the country. But the tiger, despite being hustled and hounded, remained elusive.

As if guided by an internal compass, it headed north, homing in on the forests around Corbett National Park. The killings continued, the last two taking place after the animal had travelled more than 100km in a few weeks and reached the forest.

And then, just as suddenly as they had begun, the attacks ceased.

It's now more than six months since the last kill -that of 65-year-old cattle-herder Lal Singh, whose halfeaten body was found in the Sahuwala forest range of Bijnor district.

For some reason, the `man-eater' has stopped preying on humans -a highly unusual behaviour that raises tantalizing questions for wildlife biologists. Can a man-eating tiger change its stripes? Could it return exclusively to natural prey and bust the myth, `once a maneater, always a man-eater'?

"The seventh and last human kill made by the tiger, as far as our assessment goes, was on February 6. One animal attack took place after that, on July 22, but we believe this predator was a leopard," says Kamlesh Kumar, Conservator of Forests, whose jurisdiction extends to the affected districts of Moradabad, Sambhal, Amroha and Bijnor.

The tiger's presumed turnaround appears to be without precedent. "I'm yet to come across wildlife literature on a tiger, that has repeatedly killed humans, going back to solely feeding on natural prey," says Yadvendradev Jhala, a big cat specialist at Wildlife Institute of India.

Jhala says there are three possibilities on why the animal hasn't preyed on humans after Feb 6.

"One, the tiger could have died. Two, it may have been an injured animal whose wounds have healed, thus tak ing away the pressing need to prey on hu mans. And three, the tiger may have been a transient male who strayed out in search of a terri tory and has now found one in the Corbett land scape where the possibility of coming across humans is low," says the wildlife biologist.

While the possibility cannot be discounted, there's no positive evidence that the animal has died. Both Kumar and Corbett NP warden Samir Sinha say no tiger carcasses have been found in the area in recent months.

But other imponderables remain. Despite its extraordinary history , very little is known about the tiger, including its age and sex. Although local foresters had assessed it to be a young female, these were based on fleeting sightings and pugmarks, both quite unreliable in reaching this conclusion. As the animal has since returned to tiger territory without being photographed, the identity of the Moradabad Man-eater may never be known.

Wherever it is, does the tiger retain its `memory' of stalking humans and is it likely to return to it? Expert opinion is nuanced. Tiger scientist K Ullas Karanth feels if the animal is alive and fit, and has sufficient wild prey , "it is unlikely to attack humans, particularly given how it has been disturbed after such kills in the past."

"My feeling is that if a man-eater has been sufficiently harassed and chased, it becomes wary of humans. It may still take a solitary , vulnerable human, if it had hunted humans repeatedly earlier," he adds.

For Jhala, who knows the Corbett landscape well, this tiger is more likely to kill humans than others of the species. "Humans remain on its menu card but it may be in an area where it does not encounter men," he says.

These aren't academic questions. With man-animal conflicts on the rise, such case studies could give wildlife biologists insights into a range of big cat behaviour under stress. Hopefully, the Moradabad tiger won't add any further to this body of knowledge.

Does anyone know of any more recent updates?