Injured tigress dies during treatment in Bandhavgarh reserve

A tigress that had suffered injuries in a territorial fight in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR) of Madhya Pradesh few months back, died during treatment on Thursday morning, an official said.

With this, total four tigers have died in the BTR in a fortnight, the official said.

"The tigress named T-23 was injured in a territorial fight with a tiger under Dhamokhar range of the reserve in March this year. She was kept in an enclosure in Bathan under the reserve's Tala zone and was undergoing the treatment. However, she died on Thursday morning," BTR's in-charge deputy director A K Shukla told PTI.

"T-23 had stopped consuming food since the last couple of days as her condition had deteriorated. She was badly injured in the territorial fight and could not recover fully despite the best efforts by the doctors," he said.

Shukla said that there are estimated to be 110 tigers in the BTR.

This is the fourth big cat that died in Umaria district in the past two weeks. Earlier, the BTR has lost three tigers in territorial fights.

The deaths were reported at a time when Madhya Pradesh regained the status of the country's "tiger state" after a gap of nine years.

On July 29, the carcass of a two-year-old tiger cub was found in Ghanghuti forest area of Umaria district, an official had said.

Earlier, carcass of a 10-month old cub and that of an eight-year old tigress named T-62 were found on July 27 and 28 respectively in the Kallawah range of the BTR, the official said.

The forest officials said that injury marks on the carcasses indicated that they had died in territorial fights.

The All India Tiger Estimation Report 2018, released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 29, had revealed that Madhya Pradesh was the "tiger state" of the country with 526 big cats. Karnataka was a close second with 524 tigers.

Madhya Pradesh had lost the coveted status of the "tiger state" to Karnataka in 2010.