india

Updated: Nov 08, 2019 06:04 IST

A tiger, which got trapped between rocks in a river in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district on Wednesday, was found dead this morning, a forest official said. The district is known for coal mining by the Western Coal fields.

The tiger, apparently from Tadoba tiger reserve, had jumped into Sirna river, near Kunada village, after making a kill and got spinal injuries, according to the forest officials. The feline somehow managed to swim the bank of the river and got trapped in the rocks.

The forest department on Wednesday tried to rescue the animal by offering bait in a cage. The tiger tried to pull the cage but in the process injured his teeth.

“We tried our best,” said Nitin Kakodkar, the state wildlife warden and principal chief conservator of forest (Wildlife), Maharashtra. “Efforts to lure the tiger with bait into a cage failed till Wednesday evening. Rescue operations were called off in the evening as it got dark. Some forest personnel were deployed to keep a watch on the tiger’s movements during the night. But, the wild cat was found dead this morning,” he said.

The rescue operation was conducted by a joint rescue team of the wildlife wing, forest department and few non-government organisations tried their best to rescue the two-and-a-half year old tiger, he said.

S V Ramarao, the chief conservator of forests, Chandrapur circle, said a group of coal miners of Western Coalfields Ltd were the first to sight the young tiger trapped in the rocky crevice, around 35 feet below the bridge, early on Wednesday.

“At that time, the tiger was able to move and swim. However, the wild cat slowed down with the passage of time and finally died,” Ramarao said.

Kakodkar pointed out that as the tiger was in water, the foresters were unable to tranquilise and capture it on Wednesday. “Standard operating procedures for rescue of predators prohibit use of tranquilisers while the animal is in water,” he further said.

“We fished out the carcass on Thursday and have sent it for post-mortem and further investigation is on,” Kakodkar added.

Sirna river flows next to the Taboda tiger reserve, which was ranked sixth best big cat habitat in the country by the Wildlife Institute of India study released in July 2019. The reserve is said to have about 50 tigers, as per the 2018 tiger estimation released in July.