Lakhimpur: A man-eating tiger, which
has killed eight persons in Lakhimpur and adjoining districts
in the last five months, was finally traced and cornered in a
sugarcane field in Jigna village today, a senior forest
officer said.
"The tiger has been cornered in the sugarcane field
and efforts are on to capture it. We have requested elephants
from Dudhwa National Park to ensure effective combing and to
contain the tiger in the field," Divisional Forest Officer
(DFO) Shahjahanpur PP Singh said here.
The big cat was first noticed in Deoria range of
Pilibhit district on May 3 last, where it mauled half a dozen
people to death and later strayed into Khutar range of
Shahjahanpur district where it killed two more.
The Principal Chief conservator, Forest, then declared
the tiger a man-eater and issued orders to tranquilise and
capture it. A team of forest officials and experts from the
Wildlife Trust of India was formed to trap the beast.
The team had some success last night when it finally
located the tiger near Bela Pahada forests on the border of
Shahjahanpur and Kheri districts, the officer said.
Earlier, the team had almost caught the tiger inside
the Bela Pahada forests when an elephant used in the combing
operation caught the beast by the trunk.
However, the big cat bit and seriously injured the
elephant and escaped to Mohammadi range. The team then
followed its pug-marks and finally succeeded in cornering it
in the sugarcane field in Jigna village.
-PTI
First Published: Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 00:52