It was around 8.30 p.m. on October 24 when Rajagopal, a dairy farmer at Cheeral in Wayanad, heard the lowing of his cattle from the cowshed near his house. When he, accompanied by his wife, went to take a look, they saw one of their five cows lying in a pool of blood. A tiger had pounced on the cattle, injuring it in the neck.
The milking cow was the main source of income for the farmer after the massive destruction of pepper vines and areca nut palms in his 50 cents of land. The farmer was selling 20 litres of milk a day and the income was somewhat sufficient to meet the daily expense of his family.
“I don’t know how to give good treatment to the cow and also manage the day-to-day affairs of my family,” he says.
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Dairy farmers’ nightmare
The agitation by residents of Cheeral area in Wayanad demanding steps to capture the tiger
The condition of the other dairy farmers in the area remains more or less the same. The straying tiger, which was captured, also attacked one of the four cows owned by Asma of Mangattil at Pazhur the same night. The dairy farmer was selling 30 litres of milk daily, of which the injured cow alone gave 25 litres. A cow owned by her brother Ibrahim was also killed by the same tiger that night.
As many as 13 head of cattle had been purportedly attacked by the tiger, of which nine were killed in a month, at Cheeral, Pazhur, and Mukkuthikkunnu under the Muthanga forest range in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.
Sanctuary authorities were able to identify the tiger as WS 43, a resident of the sanctuary. However, the tigers on the prowl at the human habitats at Myslambadi and Krishnangiri, nearly 25 km from Cheeral, under the South Wayanad forest range remain to be identified.
Identification and data
Combing operation of Kerala Forest Department for the tiger that killed nine cows in a month at Cheeral in Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary | Photo Credit: SPECIAL AARANGEMENT
As many as 15 domestic animals, including two cows, were injured in the attacks and five of them were killed. Forest officials suspect an adult male tiger and a cub could have attacked the cattle as the pugmarks identified at one site were smaller than those found at another site.
According to data available with the Forest department, as many as 57 tiger attacks were reported in Wayanad district so far this year, including 34 in the sanctuary, 15 in the North Wayanad, and eight in the South Wayanad forest divisions.
Four tigers, including two cubs, were captured from various parts of the district and the cubs were released into the wild. A tigress, aged about 14 years, and a male tiger, aged around 12 years, were shifted to an animal hospice and palliative care unit for big cats at Sulthan Bathery.
Paltry compensation
Many a time, the Forest department gives compensation only when domestic animals are killed in wild animal attacks, complains T.C. Joseph, chairman of the Wayanad Action Committee to Prevent Wildlife Attack, a farmer organisation. Only a nominal compensation is paid for treatment of injured livestock, that too on production of medical bills when the treatment is over, he says.
Moreover, there is no compensation forthcoming for the loss of milking period and the expenses incurred to maintain the livestock for the period. Such criteria should be changed and fair compensation should be ensured to dairy farmers, he says.
Measures taken
Kerala Forest Department officers combing the Wayanad wildlife sanctuary | Photo Credit: SPECIAL AARANGEMENT
“We have taken all possible measures to capture the tiger, even setting up three cages and installing 28 surveillance cameras at Cheeral. We are planning to install 30 more camera traps and four live streaming cameras in the area soon,” says Wildlife Warden Abdul Assis.
“A combing operation with the assistance of kumki elephants is also under way to capture the elusive tiger after applying tranquilliser shots,” he adds.
Officials of the South Wayanad forest division have also intensified similar operations to capture the elusive big cats on the prowl. “The three forest divisions in the district used to be home to 42 tigers in 2011. But the tiger population has grown and it is estimated that there are about 154 tigers here,” says I.C. Balakrishnan, MLA. Aged and injured tigers should be captured and shifted to the animal hospice to address the issue to a certain extent, he says.
The sanctuary
The sanctuary, spread over 344.44 sq km, is an integral part of the Nilgiri biosphere reserve in the Western Ghats and contiguous to the tiger reserves of Nagarhole and Bandipur of Karnataka and Mudumalai of Tamil Nadu. Hence, a tiger management plan based on a scientific study of the entire landscape is the need of the hour, says N. Badusha of the Wayanad Prakruthi Samrakshana Samiti.
The ecological degradation of the landscape due to wildfires, grazing of domestic animals, and the spread of invasive plants such as Senna spectabilis and mono-crop plantations have also led to an increase in the prey and predator population in the region, he says.
