MUMBAI: A man-eating tiger that claimed more than a dozen victims in two years has been shot dead in India, sparking controversy over the legality of its killing.
One of India’s most high-profile tiger hunts in decades ended Friday night when the mother of two 10-month old cubs — known to hunters as T1 but Avni to wildlife lovers — was shot dead in the jungles of Maharashtra state.
A team of more than 150 people had spent months searching for T1, using a paraglider and dozens of infrared cameras while sharpshooters had ridden on the backs of elephants.
However, disputes quickly erupted after the killing as media reports said the tiger was shot in Yavatmal forest with no attempt to tranquilize her.
India’s Supreme Court had issued a hunting order for T1 — blamed for 13 deaths since June 2016 — in September, ruling that she could be killed if tranquilizers failed. Several appeals were made against the death sentence.
The tiger was killed at night, when tranquilizers are not allowed to be used, according to the Times of India and other media outlets.
T1 is said to have been shot dead by Ashgar Ali Khan, son of India’s most famous hunter Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, who was meant to be leading the hunt but was not present Friday night.
Forestry officials and the hunter did not answer calls to give details of the hunt.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests A.K. Mishra told The Indian Express newspaper that a forest staffer had managed to dart the tiger with a tranquilizer at around 11 p.m.
“But she charged at the team, forcing Ashgar to shoot in self-defense,” he said. “The tigress lay dead in a single shot.”However Mishra’s account was contradicted by other reports, while many groups condemned the way the killing was conducted.
The Times of India quoted sources involved in the hunt as saying it looked as though a tranquilizer dart had been put into the tiger’s corpse after the killing. The sources said the dart had not been fired.
Forestry officials acknowledged to Indian media that no vet was present during the hunt, as required by the Supreme Court order.
Jerryl Banait, a vet and activist in Karnataka state who had launched appeals against the order, described the shooting as “cold-blooded murder.”
“Avni was killed illegally satisfying a hunter’s lust for blood,” said the Indian branch of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) group.
It said India’s Wildlife Protection Act and National Tiger Conservation Authority rules had been flouted, calling for the matter to be “investigated and treated as a wildlife crime.”
The tiger’s body has been taken to a zoo in the city of Nagpur for a post-mortem.
Despite the disputed circumstances, villages around the town of Pandharkawda celebrated the death with relief.
T1 claimed her first victim, a woman whose body was found in a cotton field, in June 2016. Since then most of the dead were male herders.
India has launched a major campaign to boost tiger numbers. At the last tiger census in 2014 the number had risen to more than 2,200 from a low of less than 1,500.
But urban spread as the population of 1.25 billion grows has increasingly eaten into the territory of wild animals.
Endangered elephants and tigers kill on average one person a day, according to government figures.
Man-eating tiger shot dead in India after massive hunt
Man-eating tiger shot dead in India after massive hunt
- A team of more than 150 people had spent months searching for tihe man0eating tiger after it killed 20 peoiple
- The tiger was killed at night, when tranquilizers are not allowed to be used, local media claim
Zelensky says Russia using Belarus territory to circumvent Ukrainian defenses
- While President Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia was using ordinary apartment blocks on the territory of its ally Belarus to attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s defenses.
The Kremlin used Belarusian territory to launch its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Belarus remains a steadfast ally, though longstanding President Alexander Lukashenko has vowed to commit no troops to the conflict.
“We note that the Russians are trying to bypass our defensive interceptor positions through the territory of neighboring Belarus. This is risky for Belarus,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram after a military staff meeting.
“It is unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favor of Russia’s aggressive ambitions.”
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had observed that Belarus was deploying equipment to carry out its attacks “in Belarusian settlements near the border, including on residential buildings.
“Antennae and other equipment are located on the roofs of ordinary five-story apartment buildings, which help guide ‘Shaheds’ (Russian drones) to targets in our western regions. This is an absolute disregard for human lives, and it is important that Minsk stops playing with this.”
The Russian and Belarusian defense ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zelensky said the staff meeting also discussed ways of financing interceptor drones, which officials in Kyiv see as the best economically viable means of tackling Russian drone attacks, which have grown in intensity in recent months.
The president said the Ukrainian military’s general staff had been charged with working out changes to strategy in fending off air attacks “to defend infrastructure and frontline positions.”
Lukashenko this month said Russia’s Oreshnik ballistic missile system, described by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin as impossible to intercept, had been deployed to Belarus and entered active combat duty.
An assessment by two US researchers, reported by Reuters on Friday, said Moscow was likely stationing the nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik at a former air base in eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe.
