The villagers have seen the photographs of the tiger’s pug marks and the slain cattle with the necks partly chewed away. The photos have been doing the rounds on social media.
TFM Report
Villagers of Kuilong in Tamenglong district are gripped by fear after a tiger had preyed on three cows on July 6. The incident has forced hapless villagers not to venture out of their houses after sunset and an uneasy calm prevails over the areas.
Kuilong is a medium-sized village with around 500 homes, located 56 km north of Tamenglong district headquarters.
The villagers have seen the photographs of the tiger’s pug marks and the slain cattle with the necks partly chewed away. The photos have been doing the rounds on social media.
It may be recalled that the last known tiger to be killed in Manipur was in 2005 at Phalong (Bhalok), another interior village in Tamenglong district. The matured tiger was shot dead by a villager. After the news of the tiger being killed, the Forest Department made inquiries around the village and started investigating if there would be more tigers in the area. The department also worked on the possibility of the areas as a breeding ground for tigers.
Later, the villagers were trained by the officials of the forest and wildlife department for months to collect the scats (droppings) and pug marks by using plaster of Paris as they were more suitable for the jungle terrain. More trips to the deep jungles were organised.
In 2008, the villagers could collect pug marks of two different sizes and the samples were submitted to the Forest department. The proof of tiger habitation in the region was established back then.
According to the District Forest Official of Tamenglong Kh Hitler Singh, Tamenglong is a pristine forest area with rich biodiversity. “The tiger is the most charismatic animal in the Indian jungle and is the national animal of India, it is a protected species and its numbers have declined drastically. The tiger hardly kills people but stays shy of them. Only when there is a scarcity of game in the region or either the cat is old, then it can attack cattle for food, but human flesh is not its natural food” says Hitler. He maintains that conservation efforts must be taken up to protect the animal at the same time educate the villagers about tiger behavior.
In an article written by Hitler, he visited the site when cattle were lifted in 2011 at Tamenglong Khunjao. He said that an all-out effort should be made to establish the presence of tigers so that conservation can take place and Tamenglong could become a tiger reserve of the country. Under the Indian government’s ‘Project Tiger’, the state can get funds to restore ecological balance and has many opportunities for the people settling in and around the reserve area.
The forest official is once again getting ready to go into the Kuilong area, which has to be approached by a ‘Shaktiman’ (a four wheeled special truck mainly used in mountainous terrain) to investigate the tiger activity and habitation. “We can only make it to that village in this particular vehicle,” he told TFM.
Hitler in one of his published articles asked, “Does Manipur have a breeding population of tiger,” and opens the article with a quote from Jim Corbett – A Tiger’s function in the scheme of things is to help maintain the balance in nature and if, on rare occasions when driven by dire necessity, he kills a human being or when his natural food has been ruthlessly exterminated by man, he kills two percent of the cattle he is alleged to have killed, it is not fair that for these acts a whole species should be branded as being cruel and bloodthirsty”.