Two cages placed to trap sloth bear at Edakkadu
NILGIRIS: A day after a 35-year-old man was killed by a sloth bear at Sathyamurthy Nagar in Edakkadu in Kundha, forest department officials fixed two cages to trap the animal on Saturday evening.
Two cages were set up at 150 metre distance by identifying the places the animal frequented. While one cage was set up close to a temple and another was set up in the slope near a garbage dumping yard. The officials have also fixed three cameras near the temple and four cameras surrounding the dump. However, no bear visited the area.
An official said that after trapping the animal, they would release it deep inside the forest. ”We have instructed people not to go alone from the bus stand to their houses and go as a group. The victim, Sathymurthy, was attacked when he went to relieve himself near the bushes alone on a patta land,” the official said.
“There are several tea gardens that act as hiding place for wild animals, including sloth bear and leopard,” the official added
The patta land, the official said, is located two kilometres from the nearby forest and though there were movement of leopard and sloth bear, this is the first time in the recent years that a bear had killed a man.
Further, the forest department denied allegations made by the victim’s family that he was killed by a leopard.