Tiger that killed 5 cows in Munnar may be training cubs, says Kerala official
Kerala forest officials have installed night vision cameras to track the tiger’s movements and reiterated their advice to the local people to avoid stepping out at night
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala’s forest department has started efforts to track a tiger that has attacked nearly a dozen domestic animals over the past week in the Nyamakad estate area near hill destination Munnar, officials said.
Officials said the search for the tiger was stepped up on the demand of locals who blocked the Munnar-Udumalpetta road on Sunday to press their demand for compensation to cover their losses due to the attacks and seek action to trap the big cat.
Devikulam sub- collector Rahul Krishna Sharma promised the government will release compensation for those who suffered losses and will take immediate measures to track the tiger.
Later in the evening, forest officials installed night vision cameras to track the tiger’s movements and reiterated their advice to the local people to avoid stepping out at night.
The provocation for the protest was an attack on the cows of an estate worker. The worker, Palani Swami, found five cows dead in his cattle shed on Sunday morning; a sixth cow was injured.
Forest officials said the tiger attacking such a large number of cows at one go was unusual. It is possible that the tiger is either injured or is training its cubs to hunt.
“We suspect the mother was training its cubs. We have fixed night vision cameras to track the movement of tiger and installed cages also,” said Munnar divisional forest officer Raju Francis adding special squads were also deployed in the forest to track the animal.
Periyar Tiger Reserve, one of the country’s 27 tiger reserves in India, is about 100km from the Nyamakad Tea Estate located in the western end of the Kanan Devan Hills.
Last month, a woman tea garden worker suffered injuries in an attack by a leopard. Weeks after a tribal youth killed a leopard that attacked him in Idukki district. The young man sustained serious injuries.