If all goes as planned, in the next few weeks, the tiger cub K4 in the Chennur forest of Mancherial district will be relieved of its pain from the wire snare cutting into its stomach.
It has been over a year since the two-and-a-half-year-old tigress was noticed carrying the snare around its lower abdomen which is getting tightened as she grows.
Permission granted
Efforts by the Forest Department to capture it by luring it into a cage have proved futile. Realising that the cat needs immediate medical attention, the Forest Department granted permission to capture it for treatment by tranquillising it, with experienced veterinarians overseeing the operation. A committee has been formed under the chairmanship of the Field Director, Project Tiger, Kawal Tiger Reserve (KTR), C. Saravanan, and five veterinary doctors — two each from Telangana and Maharashtra and one from Karnataka — and Imran Siddiqui of Hyderabad Tiger Conservation Society, an NGO, as members to go through the process of its capture, treatment and release into the wild.
“The tigress is one of the four cubs born to the famous tigress Phalguna of the bamboo-mixed forests in Kagaznagar Division in Kumram Bheem Asifabad district. She moved into Chennur in the late 2016,” recalled Mr. Siddiqui. So, it was christened K4.
The cub most probably got ensnared while moving towards the Chennur forest which is contiguous with Kagaznagar and forms part of the corridor between the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Chandrapur of Maharashtra and KTR in north Telangana. Efforts will made to first lure it with bait a couple of times and before trying to tranquillise it.
Sanitised corridor
There is another cub of the same age from the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, about 30 km from Adilabad in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra, which is also in pain and distress owing to a wire snare around her neck.
Identified with the large X stripe on her back, the cub has eluded efforts similar to those that are scheduled to be launched at Chennur, over the last few months.
The tigers in Tipeshwar — about 14 of them in a small area of 148 sq. km. — need to be protected as they will eventually move into the KTR in Telangana. The felines also need sanitisation of the ‘corridor’ through which they can safely reach the KTR’s core area in Jannaram forest. Snares are used mostly by poachers, and sometimes by farmers.
