NILGIRIS: The Gudalur Forest Division has sourced a larger cage from the Wayanad Forest Department in Kerala as part of the efforts to capture a male tiger that allegedly killed 13 cows in Devarsholai near Gudalur.
This is the fifth cage and it was set up at Devarsholai a few days ago.
The cage is 30 feet in length and 10 feet in height and has two rear and front gates.
Gudalur DFO N Venkatesh Prabhu coordinated with his Wayanad counterpart to procure it.
The Gudalur Forest Division has also started making such bigger cages to exclusively use them in Tamil Nadu. Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) field director R Kiruba Shankar had issued instructions in this regard.
"The cage is larger in size, like a room, and there will be a high chance that the animal enters the cage. This is the first of its kind in Tamil Nadu. It is being deployed to capture the problematic big cat in the state. We have also started assembling such a large cage exclusively for use on a war footing in Tamil Nadu as part of the department's effort in mitigating the human-animal conflict. Similar cages are in use in Wayanad in Kerala as well as Mysore in Karnataka," said N Venkatesh Prabhu.
Meanwhile, the number of camera traps to monitor the movements of the tiger in and around Devarsholai has been increased.
At first 26 camera traps were installed in the first week of August. Now it has been increased to 51 by sourcing them from MTR," the official said.
Sources say no killing of cows by the tiger has been reported in the last 28 days and the last incident occurred on July 31. The nearly three-year-old tiger was preying on cows that were left for grazing by their owners. Now it could have hunted spotted deer or sambar deer, etc., inside the MTR.
"The big cat could have gone inside the MTR sensing the frequent movement of tiger trackers along the MTR border wherever it had frequented. The distance between Devarshoali and MTR is four kilometers. Moreover, staff are also arriving to collect the memory cards installed in cameras.
They enter the forest only after the drone team checks for the movement of animals including elephants. We have also engaged two kumki elephants to track the tiger. The tiger was found roaming on the MTR forest boundary on August 18. Its image was also found in the camera trap," the official added.