Experts say it’s extremely unusual for a single tiger to have attacked this many people. India’s critically endangered tiger population is soaring, a success for conservation policies, but the animals are being crowded out in a competition with humans for territory.

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.

But the elephants have yet to arrive, held up by intense bureaucratic infighting among India’s myriad overlapping government agencies that cover wildlife but, between all of them, still don’t seem to have enough resources.

As the death count rises — three villagers were killed in August — several politicians are demanding that the rangers simply shoot the tiger. But that might not be legal. A wildlife activist seeking to block any such order has taken the matter all the way to India’s Supreme Court, which may hear the case soon.