Translocated Royal Bengal tiger found dead in Odisha, poachers' trap suspected

Bhubaneswar, Nov 15: A male Royal Bengal Tiger brought from Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh to Odisha's Satkosia is dead, forest department officials confirmed on Thursday, adding that they suspected it may have been killed by poachers.

The tiger, identified as MB2 and named Mahavir by Satkosia official, was part of the first tiger translocation exercise in the country earlier this year.

The exact reason of the three-year-old tiger's death will be ascertained after a postmortem is conducted, a senior forest official said Thursday.

"Yes, the animal is dead. The principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), Wildlife, has rushed to the spot and postmortem will be carried out soon. The members of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) will be present during the exercise," Forest and Environment Additional Chief Secretary S C Mohapatra told PTI.

The male tiger was brought from Madhya Pradesh's Kanha Tiger Reserve on June 21 and released in the wild on July 7. A radio collar was fitted on its neck to keep track of the animal's movement.

Signals from the radio collar had indicated on Wednesday that the animal remained immobile, forest officials said.

The Royal Bengal Tiger (RBT) had wounds on its neck, a sign that the tiger might have fought with other animals inside the forest, they said.

The Odisha government had procured a pair of RBTs, a male and a female, from Madhya Pradesh to increase the population of big cats in the state.

The female tigress 'Sundari', however, had allegedly killed two persons in the state within a span of 45 days, prompting the state government to shift her to a special enclosure at Rayagada area in Satkosia in Angul district.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority has asked an Odisha-based wildlife expert to probe the death of the tiger.

The death adds to the controversy of the translocation, after the other tiger - Sundari - shifted in the exercise purportedly killed a woman.