ANGUL: A team comprising members of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) on Friday began probe to ascertain the cause of the death of tiger Mahavir that was translocated from Kanha in Madhya pradesh to Satksoia in June. The tiger was found dead in Nuagarh reserve forest on Wednesday.
Inspector General of NTCA Amit Mallick and WII scientist K Ramesh arrived here in the afternoon and headed for Satkosia along with DFO of Satksoia wildlife division Rama Samy.
The team would stay in Satkosia for two days to conduct a detailed study on the cause of the death. They will also inspect tigress Sundari, who was brought from Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh as part of the country’s first inter-state big cat relocation programme. Sundari is now lodged in an enclosure at Raigoda after she killed two villagers.
The team is likely to recommend next destination of Sundari.
The team went to Nuagarh forest where the tiger had died and returned to Raigoda. On Saturday, they would meet the local people before returning here.Meanwhile, Field Director of Satkosia Tiger Reserve Sudarshan Panda has ruled out poaching angle to the death of Mahavir stating that no evidence was found during the post-mortem to corroborate it. He also denied any laxity on the part of the monitoring team.
“We got no trace of any wire or anything else to come to conclusion that the tiger wound was caused by trap laid by the poachers. It might have sustained injury during hunting of prey in the forest that got aggravated into infection,” he said.