Man-eaters

[Pckts]

*This image is copyright of its original author

The big cat is doing well in the large core zone of the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in spite of the considerable human presence in its vicinity. A trek in the reserve offers an abundance of animal signs and sightings. By A.J.T. JOHNSINGH and R. RAGHUNATHAROUND 3 A.M. on June 12, 2014, a young man was sitting quietly among the bushes beside the Sathyamangalam-Dhimbam Ghat Highway in Tamil Nadu waiting for two of his friends who were searching for spare parts that had spilled out of a vehicle when it overturned near the 25th hairpin bend on the road. A male leopard hunting in the area, mistaking him for prey, killed and carried him away. When his friends returned a little later, he was missing. Since there had been an incident of a leopard attacking a two-wheeler rider on the highway a few days earlier, his friends panicked and reported the matter to the Forest Department. A search was launched in the morning, and the body was found with part of the neck and sternum eaten. It was perhaps the first reported incident of a leopard eating a human in the Sathyamangalam forest.Nearly a month later, the leopard struck again, this time around 7 p.m. The victim was a 56-year-old forest guard on duty at the Dhimbam-Thalaimalai check post. The Forest Department swung into action. Camera traps were placed around the second kill site. The leopard, which was in the habit of hunting langur along the highway, was identified by a conspicuous mark on its body. By using cage traps with dogs as bait, the animal was caught on July 24 and sent to the Aringar Anna Zoological Park at Vandaloor near Chennai.There was no reason for the leopard in its prime, with no injury and all its canines intact, to go for a human kill in an area where there was sufficient prey in the form of langurs, barking deer, chowsingha, sambar, wild pigs and cattle. It had perhaps learnt from killing the young man that humans were easy prey.The Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, with an area of approximately 1,400 square kilometres (the core area being 790 sq km and the buffer zone 610 sq km), is the largest reserve in Tamil Nadu. It has seven forest ranges. Doli Parai in the Germalam range is the highest location (5,800 feet, or 1,767 metres). By virtue of its location, the reserve plays a crucial role in forming a link between the Eastern and the Western Ghats. In the north and the west, it is contiguous with the Biligiri Rangaswamy and Bandipur Tiger Reserves of Karnataka and in the east and the south with the Erode Forest Division and the Nilgiri North and Coimbatore Forest Divisions in Tamil Nadu. All these forest areas form part of the greater Nilgiris landscape.
http://www.frontline.in/environment/wild...715848.ece

Beautiful Tiger from the same area

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply