Bhopal National Park gets two man-eater tigers

Bhopal, Jul 15: With the arrival of two man-eater tigers in Van Vihar National Park here, the total number of such big cats has rose to three while the total population of tigers in the park has gone up to twelve.

Van Vihar which is situated along side the picturesque Upper Lake of Bhopal recently received two young male tigers from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve after they turned man-eaters.

"Two young tigers aged nearly two-years have arrived in the Van Vihar as they have turned man-eaters," Assistant Director, A K Khare told PTI today.

With the arrival of these two, now Van Vihar has three such tigers while the total population of tigers have gone up to twelve, he said.

These two young tigers have killed three persons including a forest chowkidar recently in Bandhavgarh following which it was decided to shift them to Bhopal for keeping them in an special enclosure with minimum human interface, he said.

After they were brought here from Bandhavgarh, one of them was not having meals, but now both of them started eating food and are adjusting to their captivity.

The other man-eater tiger aged about six years was also brought from Bandhavgarh after it killed two persons few years back.

Besides them, the park also has four man-eater panthers and all of them were kept in separate enclosures away from the visitors inside the Van Vihar which was declared as National Park in the year 1983 and spread into an area of 4.45 square kilometer situated virtually in the heart of Bhopal.

PTI