Tiger believed sacrificed at Corbett

Forest officials, however, say the remains were of a jackal or porcupine; security personnel on high alert.

Updated on: Jun 6, 2012, 01:42:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Big cats in some of India’s most well-known tiger reserves are under threat. Around 20 tigers are believed to have died in tiger reserves ranging from Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand and Tadoba in Maharashtra to Bandipur in Karnataka — indicating an increase in poaching activity.

The remains of a poached animal, which wildlife activists claim was a tiger, was found in Corbett last week. Forest department officials, however, deny their contention, stating that the animal was either a porcupine or a jackal. Nevertheless, the mystery behind the incident lay in the fact that a prayer ceremony was performed at the site before the killing.

This was confirmed when forest officials found clothes, an empty box of sweets and ash at the Bijrani range site, deep inside Corbett. Denotified tribes such as Bawarias usually conduct pujas before sacrificing wild animals.

“What they left behind was a portion of the small intestine as an offering to the deity. The tiger was skinned, and most of its body parts were taken away,” said Anil Baluni, former chairperson of state environment and forest advisory committee.

Ranjan Mishra, director of the Corbett Tiger Reserve, denied the claim. “There is a huge difference in the small intestine of tigers and other animals. We are sure that this animal was not a tiger. We have sent the body part for further analysis,” he said.

Meanwhile, a red alert has been issued and unpaid forest guards have been placed on round-the-clock patrolling. "We don't have funds, not even to buy fuel for patrol vehicles," a senior official said.

As per the 2010 tiger estimation, Corbett landscape had 214 tigers — the highest in the world. However, the open landscape of Corbett provides easy access to poachers, whose activities have intensified recently.

About 2,000 km south-west, the Tadoba tiger reserve is facing a similar threat. Wildlife activists have reported the death of around eight tigers in the last few months.

The silver lining, however, comes from the fact that Maharashtra has witnessed a 30% jump in tiger population over the last few years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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