Panna (MP): Yet another big cat, a tigress, has died in Panna Tiger Reserve after it got accidentally trapped in the illegally powered snare laid by poachers, taking up the death toll of tigers in Madhya Pradesh to 25 this year.
According to sources, three-year-old tigress T521 was killed after getting entangled into an illegally powered snare laid by poachers in Koni beat of Gehrighat area inside Panna Tiger Reserve. The big cat was one of the cubs from tigress T5 earlier which was shifted to the reserve from Kanha National Park as part of the tiger revival programme that started around 2010.
Meanwhile, a dog squad has been summoned to nab the hunters who killed tigress T521.
The tiger reserve had lost all its big cats due to poaching by 2009 and the animals were reintroduced into the reserve from nearby tiger reserves as part of the tiger conservation programme.
It was then Field Director Panna RS Murthy who had exposed the official-poachers' nexus in and around PTR in 2011 through a confidential report which later leaked to public domain through RTI.
The report indicated that nomadic tribes like Pardis and Bhelias were hand in glove with forest officials and poaching the big cats. The forest staff, who were suspected of having links with national and international poaching mafia, either suppressed the poaching cases or were not reporting the cases at all, alleged the report.
Despite growing demands of a CBI probe into the poaching of tigers in Panna, the Madhya Pradesh government has never recommended any probe by the investigative agency.
Till recently, four tigers, including a cub, have died in Shahdol-Umaria region of Madhya Pradesh while forest department officials have managed to arrest ten locals for their alleged involvement in the poaching of a tigress and a cub in Umaria. The two big cats died after being electrocuted by the poachers. The mastermind of the killing — Suraj Raghuvanshi - was also nabbed by UP Special Task Force in Uttar Pradesh.
The forest department has suspended two Deputy Rangers and two Beat Guards in connection with Umaria poaching.
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