Bigcats News

[Vijay Rajan]

The real story of Blue Eye Male's death, straight from the horse' mouth (The Field Director of Bandhavgarh).

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Have been getting requests from various friends to clarify the confusion created over death of Blue Eye. As I had been travelling due to Asia ministerial summit at New Delhi so could not find time to post on social media. Though press notes and interviews were released to print and electronic media.

The facts are very simple. An injured tiger Blue Eyes was taking shelter in the stop dam of a village Barsajaha tola. Villagers were upset and angry as the stop dam was used by the village cattle to drink water. With the reluctance of the tiger to move away the cattle had nowhere to go.On the evening of 9th April, angry villagers were reported to be advancing towards the tiger. In order to ensure safety of both, the tiger and villagers, the forest team tried to push the tiger back to forest. In the process the forest team including the joint director of the reserve and one range officer received injuries. In fact the Tigers' belly brushed the back of the crouching Mr Bangar, our joint director, he got the nail bites on his hips while OP Bhalawi, the forest ranger has a fractured arm. We used this instance to convince the villagers that the blue eyes was not a man eater as it had been branded by many agencies, media, local leaders and even local police registered a case of man eating against it. We told the villagers that tiger was not only trying to protect itself but was protecting the people as well, otherwise the people coming in its path would be proverbial sitting ducks.

Elephants and rescue team were deployed to ensure it does not come near the village. But next day on 10th April, it came back again, took shelter in the same stop dam from where it was pushed back yesterday. Serious injuries were noticed above eye and flies all over the body. Again the rescue team tried to push it back to forest with the help of the two elephants. It was found that it was not able to walk. After some distance it stopped and put its head down in recumbent position. The team of vets got worried. Alarm was sounded. Permission to administer life saving drugs and antibiotics issued. The medicines were administered through darts. Some relief, some movement and after that it collapsed again.

On closer examination it was found to have serious canine bites on neck and claw injuries on other parts of body. On post mortem septicaemia caused due to these wounds was found to be reason of death. There has been reports of tranquilization and overdose quoting sources or sutras casting doubts over the intention or capabilities of vet of the park.

I would like to remind that the same tiger was treated back in 2012, 2013 and 2014. It recovered every time. But one should remember, it was the same vet who saved him on all previous occasions. And received lots of flak when it disappeared after treatment only to reappear later on. We need to consider the following facts

1. What was forcing the tiger to keep coming back to village? A battered tiger with barely any strength left to fight another invading tiger. With deep wounds on the neck region clearly canine bites along with claw marks on eye and shoulder festering for past 6-8 days, poison spreading across vital organs. Yesteryear's hero of tala and Magadhi core, was pushed out to buffer forests three years ago, was limping ever since feeding on cattle, branded as man eater by many pressure groups, now was being forced out of buffer too and was taking shelter in village. It didn't have energy or strength to go back to forest with the presence of other male.

2.What medicine would a vet administer, life saving drug approved by higher authorities or tranquilization drugs on his own?

3. What are the options with a rescue team with two elephants? You need at least four elephants to perform tranquilization, you have to corner the animal so that it doesn't disappear and has to be revived after sedation. With two elephants you can only push it towards the jungle, which is what was intended and done in present case.

4. When there was no plan, permission, situation or intention to tranquilize, where is the question of overdose?

5. The fact is, permission to administer dexamethasone and antibiotic was issued once it was found that it was unable to walk back to forest and sat down with head in recumbent position. As the condition didn't improve other senior vets and officers were consulted. All the attempts were made to save its life, but it could not be saved.

6. The invading male tiger BTR MP T 06 announced itself the very next day, marching across where blue eye used to stay resting just 600 meters away, with tell-tale wound marks on forelimbs. 

That is all about the territory fight theory which led to demise of battered blue eye.

However samples for toxicological and histopathological tests have been collected and sent across different labs to ascertain the cause of death as per the protocol laid down by NTCA. If anyone has any evidence or clue to counter any of the facts stated above is welcome to approach us in all privacy and submit any evidence or proof , proving anything counter to the facts mentioned above. Reply