A male Royal Bengal tiger, who was shifted in July from a tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh, has been found dead in Odisha’s Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary, PTI reported on Thursday. Forest officials said they are awaiting the results of an autopsy to ascertain the cause of death.
The three-year-old animal, named Mahavir, was part of the country’s first inter-state wild-to-wild translocation of tigers, IANS reported.
Forest and Environment Additional Chief Secretary SC Mohapatra confirmed the report. “The principal chief conservator of forests has rushed to the spot and a postmortem will be carried out soon,” Mohapatra told PTI. “The members of National Tiger Conservation Authority will be present during the exercise.”
The tiger was shifted from Madhya Pradesh’s Kanha Tiger Reserve on June 21 and released into the Odisha sanctuary on July 7. A radio collar was placed around its neck to help forest officials keep track of the animal’s whereabouts.w
The device helped officials trace the animal after signals from the collar showed that it had been immobile since Wednesday, unidentified officials told PTI.
The animal’s carcass was found with a deep laceration wound, infested with five-day-old maggots, in the neck, IANS quoted a forest department statement as saying.
The Odisha administration had procured a tigress, named Sundari, along with the male, to help increase the species population in the state. Officials, however, had to move her into a special enclosure in Rayagada after she allegedly killed two people within 45 days.
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