Amid intensified efforts to capture a tiger after it killed a man in Madhya Pradesh’s Raisen district, the forest department will install 50 more camera traps to track its movement, an official said on Sunday.
Forest officials have already set up 100 such cameras in the Raisen forest division, about 35 km from Bhopal district headquarters, where the big cat mauled a 62-year-old villager to death five days ago.
Camera traps are used for monitoring or capturing images of wildlife or other objects in their natural environment without direct human presence.
“We will install 50 more cameras tomorrow (Monday) to track the tiger’s movement in the forest area close to 36 villages for which a red alert has been sounded,” Raisen Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Vijay Kumar told PTI over the phone.
According to forest officials, the tiger might have ventured out of Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary in the Obaidullahganj forest division of Raisen. Ratapani is home to over 60 big cats.
With the new cameras, which will be provided by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the number of trap cameras in the area will rise to 150, he said.
“Besides this, we have put up three cages with baits to capture the tiger. An open trap with a buffalo tied to a tree has also been placed to lure the big cat,” the DFO said.
It is difficult to capture the tiger right now as it is on the move, he said.
“The tiger might go for a kill in the next 2 to 3 days. Usually, a tiger hunts once a week. After killing its prey, it hangs around it for some time to eat in intervals. We will try to capture it during that time,” he said.
The half-eaten body of 62-year-old Maniram Jatav, a resident of Neemkheda village, was found on Wednesday in the east range of the Raisen forest division. Jatav had ventured into a forest to pluck tendu leaves, used for rolling beedis.
The DFO said a post-mortem confirmed that a tiger had killed Jatav.
“We are monitoring the movements of the big cat. A red alert was sounded on Friday for 36 villages spread over 150 sq km. People have been asked not to venture into the forests till the animal is captured,” Kumar said.
A red alert is issued when there is a threat to human life by a wild animal, he said.
At least 100 people, including forest officials and volunteers, are monitoring the tiger's movements, he said.
Teams on foot and in vehicles and people in a control room are analysing the footage of camera traps to figure out the tiger's next move, the DFO said.
Tiger sightings are not new in the forests near the 36 villages. Such movements have been noticed there since 2017, he said.
According to forest officials, the tiger might have ventured out of Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary in the Obaidullahganj forest division of Raisen. Ratapani is home to over 60 big cats.
Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of 785 tigers in India, according to the latest official big cats count released last year.
