By IANS
Lucknow : A full-grown tigress has been found dead in the Katarniyaghat forest reserve near Uttar Pradesh’s famous Dudhwa national park.
The tigress was found dead Monday. Katarniyaghat forest reserve in Bahraich district has about 42 tigers, according to the last census.
“According to available evidence, the tigress in Katarniyaghat was killed in a fight with a male tiger. Such clashes are not uncommon during the mating season of tigers, which is currently on,” Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Wildlife Conservator D.N.S. Suman told IANS Tuesday morning.
He said: “The fact that our forest guards also spotted a wounded male tiger in the vicinity of the carcass of the dead tigress further confirmed our doubts.”
He said a post-mortem would be carried out to confirm the exact cause of the death.
In another incident, the half-devoured body of a 13-year-old boy was found in a forest in Lakhimpur-Kheri Monday. Wildlife officials said the boy was killed by a leopard as pugmarks were discovered near the body.
Suman said: “Our teams have fanned out in the forests to spot the leopard who was thought to have mauled the child. We suspect that the animal has turned into a man-eater, so our aim would be to trap the leopard and send it to a zoo.”
People in the boy’s village, Samrana, were unhappy at the compensation for his death – the family was given Rs.3,000 by the forest department and Rs.5,000 by the World Wildlife Fund.
But Suman said, “There is little that we can do about it as we have to follow the laid down laws and rules.”