The newly constituted 80-member special team on Thursday intensified combing operations to capture the elusive tiger in Wayanad district of Kerala that is suspected to have killed a farmer at Koodallur in the district a few days ago.
The big cat, nearly 13 years old, has been identified as WWL-45 of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, as per the database of the Forest department.
Though the special team, consisting of trackers, shooters, veterinarians and members of the rapid response team (RRT) mobilised from the three forest divisions in the district, has searched the human habitats of the Koodallur and Moodakkolly areas bordering the Irulam forest of the South Wayanad forest division and the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, the efforts yielded no results so far.
Two kumki elephants
Apart from the special team, two ‘kumki’ (trained) elephants, Vikram and Bharat, were also pressed into service to locate the tiger.
Though the big cat reached one of the two cages set up near a poultry farm at Koodallur to capture it but, the animal did not enter the cage and instead roamed near these.
The pug marks of the tiger were identified from the site, Forest department sources said.
A man-eater
Kerala Forest Minister A.K. Saseendran on Thursday said the Chief Wildlife Warden had issued an order to shoot dead the tiger after it was identified as a man-eater. As many as five patrolling teams were also constituted to monitor the movements of the tiger round the clock, apart from the installation of 25 surveillance cameras in the area for the purpose, the Minister said.
