A tiger cub was found dead in the Nagarahole forests, due to injuries suspected to have been inflicted during a territorial fight with another tiger.
The carcass was found in the D.B. Kuppe range of the tiger reserve on Tuesday evening.
An examination on Wednesday revealed the brutality of the fight with another tiger, which had ripped apart its organs besides fracturing its skull.
The 10-month-old cub was dragged for more than 30 meters as indicated by a trail of blood.
The post-mortem was conducted as per the NTCA norms and the carcass burnt, according to the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve Director Manikantan.
He said that the extent of the injury was such that it could not be ascertained whether the cub was a male or a female.
This is the 10th tiger death reported from Nagarahole this year and 17th in the State out of 93 tiger deaths reported from across the country.
This also comes barely 48 hours after a tiger was found dead in the adjoining Bandipur National Park.
The Bandipur tiger is suspected to have been poisoned and the authorities have sent the samples of the viscera to the forensic laboratory for analysis.
Though death due to infighting is common among the big cats, there is an escalation in their numbers in the Bandipur-Nagarahole belt due to increase in their densities.
The two tiger reserves together account for nearly 180 to 200 tigers which is roughly half the tiger population in the State (nearly 405 as per 2015 estimations) and hence it is suspected that the forests may have reached their ecological carrying capacity to hold tigers and hence the imperatives of augmenting the buffer zones, according to experts.
