Maneater tigress draws Indian court ruling!
In India, you can’t just shoot a tiger, The New York Times writes. Even if it’s a man-eater, and even if you’re working for a government agency, many strict requirements must be met before one of the endangered animals can legally be killed.
The newspaper reports: Wildlife advocates on Tuesday entered India’s Supreme Court in hopes of saving a female tiger known as T-1, who has evaded capture four times and is believed to have killed 13 people.
The BBC wrote, India's Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal to stop forest rangers from killing a man eating tigress in the western state of Maharashtra.
The court would not interfere if forest rangers are forced to shoot the tiger if they fail to capture it, the BBC said referring to the court.
The country's forest rangers are now gearing up for a complex military-style operation to deploy sharpshooters with tranquilizer guns on the backs of half a dozen elephants to surround the tiger, capture her and send her to a zoo, according to The Times of India.
It mentioned that DNA tests, camera traps, numerous spottings and pugmarks have pinned at least 13 human killings on a single, 5-year-old female tiger that seems to have developed a taste for human flesh.
“I don’t want to kill this beautiful animal,” ToI quoted KM Abharna, a top forestry official in Pandharkawada, as saying. “But there’s a hell of a lot of political pressure and a hell of a lot of public pressure.”
The hunt for a tiger blamed for more than a dozen fatal attacks on humans has sparked controversy in India, writes CBS News. The female tiger, known as T1, has reportedly terrorised villagers in Maharashtra.
“All the people killed have been killed in the forest,” Anand Grover, a lawyer for the wildlife advocates, told the justices, according to The New York Times. “You go into that area on your own risk,” he added. “How can you hold the tiger responsible?”
The BBC quoted officials as saying that they would also try to tranquilise the tigress's two cubs and a male tiger called T2, which has been spotted roaming the same territory. It has not been blamed for any deaths.
India's tiger population - which had been on the decline for several years - has steadily increased since 2006 when the country upped its conservation efforts, added the BBC.