After a brief interval, the tiger menace has returned to Wayanad giving both the farmers and forest officials a tough time. A cow and its calf were killed by a wild animal, presumably a tiger, at the Pothummoola forests of the Begur forest range under the North Wayanad Forest Division, late on Thursday.
The cow and its one-day-old calf had gone missing since Thursday evening. Though the locals combed the nearby areas for the missing cattle, their search did not yield any results. On Friday morning, they found the half-eaten carcass of the five-year-old cow at a private coffee plantation, about 200 metres away from the cowshed. The calf was believed to be eaten by the big cat.
“I think the tiger must have sneaked into the cowshed late in the evening. But there was no unusual noises,” said M Krishnan, the owner of the cattle.
A team of forest officials, headed by North Wayanad Divisional Forest Officer A Shanavas, reached the spot after the locals intimated the staff at the Appapara Forest Station. “There were pug marks along the track leading to the coffee plantation from the cowshed,” the DFO said, adding that the pugmarks on the hard surface were not very clear. “The surface was so hard and it did not hold a very clear and deep imprint of the pugmarks. So we could not ascertain other details such as the animal’s age, size etc.”
The Forest Department would set up a cage trap in the area on Saturday. The cattle owner has been assured of a compensation of `55,000 on the basis of the post-mortem report.
On December 2, a 15-year-old tiger which was on the prowl in some areas in the district had been shot dead by the Forest Department officials.