SHAHJAHANPUR: For the last week, Mohnapur village in Khutar, 50 km from here, has been reluctantly hosting a tigress and its two cubs. According to locals, the wild boar population in the surrounding area is high, which might be one reason the tigress has made the village its base. Although humans have not been attacked, two heads of livestock have been killed already. However, locals alleged that the forest department hasn’t sent anyone to take a look.The situation seems to be identical to Amariya in Pilibhit, where a tigress is reported to have brought up two cubs for almost two years but never attacked any humans. The residents of Amariya never had any problems because the tigress killed many wild boars and neelgai which used to destroy the crops of farmers.Similarly, Mohnapur and its neighbouring villages — Muraadpur, Tondarpur and Sujanpur — had been suffering from wild boars, which destroyed sugarcane crops and dug holes in fields. Ever since the tigress turned up, however, the wild boar population has come down, villagers said, although they are also frightened by the presence of the big cat, keeping in mind that five persons have been killed by tigers in Kheri this year.Mohnapur resident Adarsh Verma told TOI, “Many of us have seen the tigress with its two cubs, but no villager has been attacked so far. However, two dogs from the village have been killed and villagers are of course scared. The wild boar numbers have gone down, so you can call it a blessing in disguise. Still, we don’t go out into the fields at night”Kewal Singh from the neighbouring village of Sujanpur said, “We work in groups in the fields, just in case the tigress turns up. So far there has been no confrontation between the animal and us, and as long as it hunts the wild boars, it is good for us. But we are still at risk so the forest department should take steps to help both us and the tigress.”According to locals and experts, the tigress may have selected the area to bring up her cubs without the risk of them being attacked by tigers.“We will send officials to examine the situation and see what can be done. Normally, a tigress with cubs doesn’t attack humans, because she teaches the cubs how to hunt and humans aren’t a natural prey. If she stays on there, we will have to arrange for her security from poachers,” said sub-divisional forest officer Ankesh Kumar Srivastava, talking to TOI.“The possibility of man-tiger conflict is high in this situation. We will send a team to check the situation. A team had been sent before but had found only the tigress’ pug marks, not the cubs. We could even install camera traps because the security of the endangered species is extremely important,” said Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) state co-ordinator Mudit Gupta.