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Woman killed in tiger attack in Nainital district, body found 500 metres away
Shekhar Tiwari, ranger of the Kosi forest range said the incident took place at about 9:30am on Wednesday when the woman had gone to pick fodder
RUDRAPUR: A 60-year-old woman who had gone into the forest to collect cattle fodder was killed in a tiger attack in Nainital district’s Ramnagar area on Wednesday morning.
Shekhar Tiwari, ranger of the Kosi forest range said the incident took place at about 9:30am on Wednesday when Tulsi Devi of Ringora village, had gone with some other women to pick fodder. The tiger attacked Tusli Devi, prompting the other women to run back to the village and inform forest department officials.
Tulsi Devi was found dead about 500 metres from the spot where she was first attacked.
“We rushed to the spot and recovered the body. But the enraged villagers blocked the national highway. We pacified them and sent the body for postmortem,” said Tiwari.
The villagers agreed to lift the road blockade about two-and-a-half hours later after they were assured of action on their demands.
Vinod Papney, a social activist based in Ramnagar said the forest department had been launching new safari zones in the Corbett landscape, which increased instances of man-animal conflict.
“Where would the wild animals go in such conditions? Interference in wild animals’ areas by humans is one of the main reasons that incidents of man-animal conflict are on the rise”, he said.
On December 11, the forest department trapped a tiger in the Naukuchiatal area near Bhimtal in Nainital district and took it to the Ranibagh Rescue Centre following suspicions that it was involved in a tiger attack.
Uttarakhand has the third-highest tiger population in the country with 560 tigers, while Corbett Tiger Reserve has reported the highest tiger population with 260 tigers among the country’s 53 tiger reserves. There are 260 tigers inside and 229 outside the Corbett Tiger Reserve, officials said.
