The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)

5 elephants, 140 forest officials and a tranquilis­er dart – how a tiger that killed a man was caught

It took a month to track and capture the 4-year-old male, which had killed a farmer near Bhopal

A TIGER and five elephants were locked in a game of hide and seek for over a week in the forests of Raisen district in Madhya Pradesh.

This was the first time the big cat, which officials believe had killed a 62-year-old farmer on the outskirts of Bhopal around a month ago, had seen an elephant in its life. It was not accustomed to seeing mammoths while traversing the forests of Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary, forest officials said.

Divisional Forest Officer Vijay Kumar had pulled all the stops to catch the tiger, which had spread panic across villages in Raisen. On Thursday afternoon, the animal finally let one of the elephants come close to it. What it didn’t know was that an expert was sitting atop the mammoth, armed with a tranquilis­er.

And thus ended the monthlong chase.

"We had a team of 140 people, including over 100 from the local team and staff from Kanha and Satpura Tiger reserves. The five elephants from Kanha helped track down the tiger, but it never allowed them to come close. We waited patiently, and it gradually grew comfortabl­e. Once we got to the 40-metre range, we managed to dart the tiger, a four-year-old male," Kumar told The Indian Express.

Its victim was 62-year-old Maniram Jatav, a farmer and father of six. He was killed at Neemkheda village while he was out picking tendu leaves, around 7 am. The tiger was hidden in four-foot-tall grass, where wildlife officers speculate it was resting.

It was for the first time in decades that a tiger had killed a man in the area, which is just over 30 kilometres from Bhopal.

Forest officials had formed a team comprising animal trackers, another team to set up camera traps and pug impression pads, and a third team supervised by the local Sub-divisional Forest Officer to analyse field data and formulate a strategy.

Around ten days ago, the teams managed to narrow down the tiger's location, having planted over 200 cameras to track it. On June 3, five elephants from Kanha joined in the hunt. Doctors from Satpura Tiger reserve were also called in.

But the tiger proved too smart to capture at first. “We were constantly on its tail, but it evaded our teams. It had a lot of hiding spots and would flee after spotting our teams,” Kumar said.

After narrowing down the location of the tiger, tranquilis­ers and trap cages will be used to capture it.

After it was tranquilis­ed, the big cat was taken to Satpura Tiger reserve, where it will be housed inside a one-hectare tiger enclosure. Its behaviour will be closely studied by veterinari­ans, who will take a call on whether to release the tiger into the wild.

"The tiger should be radio collared and released. We still think the tiger should not be called a man-eater. It made an accidental kill, after a human ventured into its home. Now it will be sent to a new home," Kumar said.