Sub-adult tiger killed in territorial fight

Chandrapur: A radio collared sub-adult male tiger was found dead in South Bramhapuri range on Wednesday morning. Autopsy examination has confirmed that the tiger died in territorial fight with another male tiger.
The dead tiger was one of the two collared tigers that were selected for the proposed tiger translocation project. It had recently separated from mother and was one of the six sub-adults tiger selected for the translocation project.
While this tiger was looking to create its own territory, local adult tiger confronted the sub-adult male and killed it. Forest officials suspect that the other tiger involved in fight was T-18 having its territory in the same area. Foresters are on a look out for T-18 to ascertain whether it has sustained any grievous injuries during the fight.
A forest guard during his morning patrol discovered the carcass in the shrubs on a private land (Gat no. 182) close to agricultural fields in Padmapur forest beat. The spot is located around 25km from Sindewahi.
CCF Sanjay Thakre, who visited the spot, informed that the carcass was more than 24 hours old. The beast had severe injuries all over the body suggesting that it died in a territorial fight. All the body parts were intact, which also rules out the possibilities of poaching, he said.
Veterinary doctors Dr Ravikant Khobragade and Dr Prashant Deshmukh confirmed it a case of death due to territorial fight. State wildlife board member Bandu Dhotre and wildlife activist Aditya Joshi were present. PCCF and NTCA representatives along with other forest officials too were present during post mortem.
The tiger was fitted with radio collar along with female tigress of the same litter as a part of phase-II collaring exercise under the project ‘Studying the dispersal of tigers across the Eastern Vidarbha Landscape’. A team of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) led by Habib Bilal had tracked and tranquillized this tiger weighing 147kg near Malgujari Talao in Halda village on June 4 and had radio collared it before releasing it back into the wild.
This is sixth tiger death in Chandrapur district this year.