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NEW DELHI – A man-eating tiger who roamed the hills of central India for over two years and who has repeatedly escaped capture was shot by hunters after one year. the most intensive tiger hunts in recent history, officials said.
The tiger-woman, named T-1 by the forest guards, was held responsible for the death of at least 13 villagers before being killed on Friday night. The plan had been to calm her. But according to the hunters who tried to capture her, she roared and charged after being hit in the short term by a tranquilizer dart.
The villagers in the area rejoiced when they heard of his death, firing firecrackers, distributing treats and raising fists in the air.
Wildlife activists were outraged. "It's a cold-blooded murder," said Jerryl Banait, who had gone to the Supreme Court of India to try to force the authorities to spare the tiger's life and capture it instead.
A man-eating tiger on the run can seem to come out of a Kipling story. But it is a very real and growing problem in India today.
The efforts of the country to protect tigers are somehow victims of its own success. India the population of critically endangered tigers is in full swing. Closer surveillance, new technologies and stricter wildlife laws have resulted in a sharp increase in the number of tigers, from 1,411 in 2006 to about 2,500 today.
Many tigers are short of space, leave their dedicated reserves, roam along highways and cross overcrowded farmland.
T-1 has never lived in a dedicated tiger reserve; 30% of Indian tigers do not do it. She wandered in a wooded area of about 60 square miles, just on the edge of busy farmland near the town of Pandharkawada. Even though she had lived, according to the authorities, the tiger could never have been reintroduced into the wild.
For months, the noose was tightening around her. Hundreds of rangers have invaded the jungles of central Maharashtra, browsing the bushes for tiger tracks, stray hairs, long scratches on trees – anything that could reveal the truth. where she was hiding.
Hunting has become a sprawling military-style operation, possibly encompassing a drone in search of warmth, hundreds of people, more than a hundred remote cameras and a team of specially trained Indian elephants with shooters elite mounted on the back.
But three things complicated the effort. The tiger was a mother of two young cubs and the authorities did not want to hurt the young tigers. The grass was high and the shrubs overgrown because the monsoon rains ended recently. And this tiger was perceived as exceptionally clever.
The tiger experts said that she had taken advantage of previous attempts to capture her and that she knew how to sneak into the bush undetected, sometimes just a few steps away from the ranger and police teams at his research.
"She learned from all these botched capture operations," said Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, a famous tiger hunter that authorities had called for help. "We made it very smart. Great, actually. "
The break can come from a surprise source: a bottle of cologne by Obsession.
Obsession (a popular male scent in the 1990s) contains civetone, a compound derived from the origin of the fragrant glands of a civet. In the areas where it was sprayed, the cats take huge sniffs and roll for several minutes.
Last month, Indian rangers cast sightings on bushes here and there, hoping to attract the tiger. On Friday afternoon, the rangers sprayed Obsession and Tiger urine into an area where she was hiding.
A few hours later, the villagers saw a female tiger trotting along the road. People started to panic. Authorities dispatched teams to evacuate nearby cotton fields.
Mr. Khan's son, Asghar, also a hunter, rushed with a team of rangers in a small open-air jeep. They spotted a female tiger for a fleeting few seconds moving through the bushes. Tiger stripes are like fingerprints; each motif is unique. According to the tapes, they could say that the tiger was T-1.
A ranger fired a dart that struck, forest officials said. However, tranquilizer darts can take up to 15 minutes to lull an animal to sleep. According to the authorities, after being stung, the tiger came back, roared loudly and loaded the open jeep. Asghar Khan then fired a bullet from a high powered rifle. Authorities said that it was "self defense".
"We would have lost some men if we tried to save her," said Mr. Khan's father, Nawab.
The ball hit the bottom of the tiger and she died instantly. The photos show it with a big red hole in the belly. Officials are now conducting an autopsy.
Asghar Khan could not be reached for comment. But his father sent a short message to a reporter via WhatsApp.
"I'm sad we could not save the man eater," the book reads. Efforts to "save her have disappeared because of the hostile terrain and her aggressive behavior."
"She was doing what any mother would do," said Subramaniam. "She was just trying to defend her little ones and her territory."
Few villagers in this region expressed anything but the joy of his departure.
"Now our lives will be back to normal," Hidayat Khan said. "We can go to our fields and do our work."
The first known victim of the tiger was killed in 2016. An elderly woman was found lying face down in a cotton field and huge claw marks were dug in the back. The next was a farmer, his left leg torn off.
The killings continued for more than two years, causing panic. In August, the mutilated body of Vaghuji Kanadhari Raut, a shepherd, was found near a rural road.
What was particularly frightening about this attack was that Mr. Raut stood in the middle of a ring of cattle when he was pulled by the neck. None of his cows were affected. He was suspected of being the 12th victim.
Based on DNA tests of tiger saliva collected from cadavers, images of remotely controlled camera traps, numerous traces of traces and traces of tigers, authorities have associated at least 13 murders with the tiger, who would probably be about 5 years old.
The authorities did not say what was going to happen to the tiger cubs. On Saturday, the villagers saw one of the bears climbing up a hill near the place where T-1 had died.
