After it was exposed that the tranquiliser gun used during Operation Tiger in Bandipur National Park was defective, the Forest Department has decided to upgrade its tools used to handle wild animals in a crisis.
Firstly, the park authorities have decided to replace the current tranquiliser ‘dis-inject guns’ with ‘dan-inject gas guns’, following instructions from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
The instructions came close on the heels of the tiger attacks on the fringe villages of the park recently, which killed three people in a week.
According to sources, park autorities failed to take all veterinarians in the region into confidence and frame a strategy to catch the tiger before it mauled three people to death in H D Kote taluk.
Meanwhile, the dis-inject guns were not maintained properly. As a result, when veterinarian Dr Nagaraj and tranquilliser Akram tried to sedate the animal on November 30, they failed.
A total of 12 darts, each costing `10,000, were wasted in this process.
Not summoning elephants --- Jayaprakash and Arjuna --- earlier was another setback for the operation.
Similar lapses came to light even while the tiger was finally caught alive on Thursday near the Hediyala forest range.
Noticing the the lack of preparedness of the park’s veterinarians, Mysore Zoo Executive Director B P Ravi is said to have reprimanded them.
Although Dr Nagaraj eventually managed to tranquilise the tiger, another two darts failed to do the job.
A non-Bandipur National Park veterinarian Dr Sannath sedated the tiger in one shot.
“If the gun was not functioning properly, why did you not get a new one without delay?” he asked Dr Nagaraj.
This apart, the authorities also failed to bring a net to cover the tiger after it was sedated and a Y-shaped stick to trap it.
A fully-equipped team, not part of the Bandipur National Park, finally got the job done and shifted the man-eater to a vehicle for transportation.