Additional STF members, drones, sniffer dogs deployed to gun down Gudalur tiger

Will they be creating a new history in Tamil Nadu by capturing the suspected man eater alive for wildlife studies or repeat the history of hunting down the dreaded tiger bringing respite to the public outcry is what everyone is looking forward to.

Following political pressure from the opposition AIADMK MLA Pon Jayaseelan and the public uproar, the forest department headquarters had not only given a shooting order but also diverted additional trigger happy special task force members into the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. “This deployment had created a mental fatigue for other teams that are trying to capture the tiger alive either through trap or tranquiliser,” disclosed an informed wildlife source.

“STF had shot down two suspected man-eaters in The Nilgiri landscape in 2014 and 2015. This is the third time they are deployed along with other forest teams. Multiple teams are now deployed into the MTR and the search operation had been intensified,” the source said.

“Drones are being used in a big way to locate the tiger. Only tranquilizing guns will be in the front formation. Besides sniffer dogs have joined the team to track the big cat. Highly trained elite foresters will be in the front formation for capturing the tiger,” principal chief conservator of forests and chief wildlife warden Shekhar Kumar Niraj told DT Next.

“The forest department has been wasting time and we had lost four lives due to the tiger attack. The good news is that the shoot at sight orders have been issued against the man-eater. The forest department should have done this earlier,” Gudalur AIADMK MLA Pon Jayaseelan told reporters.

“From now on, it will be a race between the teams with different objectives. This will be like a Sherni movie now where the political and public pressure will be given more importance than the life of a tiger,” opined wildlife enthusiast Karthick Kamalakannan, who wants the tiger to be captured alive scripting a new history in Tamil Nadu. Our State's case history is that suspected man-eaters are always shot dead, Karthick added.