It was a double tragedy for the Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Madhya Pradesh as a 3–year-old tigress, released into the wild a few days ago, died due to injuries sustained in a turf war with another tigress in the reserve.
Earlier Avni, the famous mother of the young tigress, had been shot dead by a sharpshooter two years ago after being declared a maneater and this had sparked a major controversy at the time. Avni’s cub had been rescued from the wild, a month after her mother’s death, as it was not possible for her to survive on her own.
Since then she was kept for over two years in a 5 hectare enclosure at the PTR far away from humans, where she learnt how to hunt in a natural way in the rewilding lessons. She was rechristened from TIC2 to PTR-84 and “released” on March 5 in the reserve.
Before her release, the tigress was radio-collared with the help of scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
"Monitoring of the tigress will be carried out with the help of field formation and satellite tracking. Although we cannot predict how this tigress will behave in the wild, the forest department has taken the best of efforts to re-wild the animal using systematic re-wilding techniques," the Forest Department had said at the time of the release.
However, within a couple of days after her release, she had a territorial fight with another tigress in the area, and was seriously injured in her front limbs and chest, officials said.
“She was inside a treatment cage in the enclosure and was being monitored and treated daily by the veterinary officers. On Saturday evening it was found that her health was deteriorating. The veterinary team advised us to shift her to Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur. Immediately, preparations were made. She, however, succumbed to her injuries around 10 pm. The veterinary team tried its best to provide emergency treatment,” a press note issued by PTR Field Director Ravikiran Govekar said.
Nitin Kakodkar, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests said that the post-mortem showed critical internal injuries and haemorrhage.
Her mother Avni, or T1, was an adult tigress with two cubs who were 10 months old at the time she was killed. The tigress was suspected in the killing of 13 persons since June 2016.
The tigress was shot dead by an expert hunter, who accompanied forest officials, on November 02, 2018, three months after the Supreme Court ordered that the animal be tranquilized and transported elsewhere, failing which the authorities were given permission to kill her.
