Nagpur
: The injured tigress, which was brought to the Nagpur’s Gorewada Rescue Centre on December 24 from Pombhurna, Chandrapur, succumbed to its injuries on Sunday night. This is the 42nd tiger death in the State this year.
According to reports, the big cat was rescued from a culvert pipe amid high drama on Thursday from Pombhurna forest range in Central Chanda. Despite best efforts by veterinarians from Wildlife Research and Training Centre (WRTC), the tigress couldn’t survive. “The tigress was severely dehydrated, moderately anaemic, cachexia and brought in a critical condition. The lower jaw was totally broken with fractures of mandible bilaterally, loss of musculature, distorted floor of the mouth cavity,” said Dr Shirish Upadhye, Director of WRTC.
Necessary treatment was offered with intravenous fluids, antibiotics and supportive therapy was instituted along with dressing of oral wounds. “The tigress couldn’t swallow the boiled egg or the raw egg offered to it,” said Dr Upadhye. Blood profiling was also undertaken that showed severe generalized infection. On Sunday evening its condition became more critical, with compromised cardiorespiratory functioning and the tigress died around 7 pm on Sunday.
The lower jaw of the feline was completely broken and virtually dangling, due to which it was unable to eat anything or swallow liquid foodstuff. Amid conflicting reports about the tigress being injured after a mob threw a crude bomb meant to kill wild boars, sources said even if true, the incident did not occur recently. Sources said, a camera trap image of the tigress captured on December 12 shows the jaw injury and perhaps due to this reason it was unable to hunt. In the last 10 days, the tigress was engaged in killing easy prey like goats near agricultural farms.
On Thursday too, the tigress had killed a goat but was shooed away by local people. In an attempt to escape, it entered a 35-feet-long culvert pipe and got trapped as the other end was blocked by sludge accumulated for a long time. This means the tigress was injured before December 12, and the injury may be due to low-intensity crude bomb, wire snares, or possibly small steel traps laid for herbivores. She may have got stuck and injured its jaw got badly while attempting to free itself. However, forest officials and forest staff involved in the operation feel it is a bomb injury, as there is absolutely no injury on other body parts, said sources.
