Madhya Pradesh has lost the highest number of tigers in five years. According to forest officials, 11 Tigers lost their lives in the state within the first ten months of the year.
MP had emerged as the state with the highest number of tigers this year itself. The 2018 All India Tiger Estimation report released in July stated that MP had a total number of 526 tigers followed by Karnataka, which had 524.
Recently, the murder of a Tiger was reported in MP’s Vindhya region, the villagers had poisoned a tigress near Sanjay Tiger Reserve for attacking their cattle. The T-20 tigress’ carcass was found on October 28 and seven villagers were arrested by forest officials for killing the tigress.
A forest official said, “Of the 11, four died of electrocution; poachers killed three and two died of poisoning. Reasons for deaths of two tigers at the Pench Tiger Reserve [in February and March] are not known.”
Deputy conservator of forests (wildlife), Rajnish Kumar Singh, said that some of the deaths were natural which might have been caused by territorial fights. He did agree to the fact that tiger-human conflict also caused a few of the deaths.
“Compensation for the killing of domestic animals by tigers has been enhanced to ensure that villagers do not commit such offences,” he said.
