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Finally, the T23 tiger in TN is captured alive after three weeks of hide and seek!

By alagu, 15 October, 2021
Tiger, Nilgiris, Tamilnadu

Finally, the Tamil Nadu forest department officials had on Friday accomplished the mission of capturing the tiger, which has been named T23, which had been playing hide and seek in the woods for three weeks. The efforts to cage the wildcat were in an unprecedented fashion as it is a first-of-its-kind incident in years that a tiger had caused major disruption of lives. After an incessant search, the officials had caught the tiger alive and taken it into captivity to decide the next course of action. 

The tiger had been wandering in the woods in Gudalur in the Nilgiris district. It was said that the tiger had become a man-eater after killing four people and several cattle. As it had been on the run with a good knowledge of the hilly terrain, the tiger's movement and ambush had majorly disrupted the lives of the locals as they feared to exit their houses and refrained from travelling to other places. The people in Masanagudi had expressed worry and urged the authorities to capture the tiger.

The state forest department had deployed several measures to locate the wildcat and capture it. However, the officials had been missing their target in dawn and dusk. It was firstly spotted in the Devan tea estate in Gudalur and it was accused of killing four people and dozens of cattle, besides disrupting the normal lives of the locals. Apart from the on-foot search, the officials had also installed surveillance cameras, eagle-eyed trackers, and using the help of the forest officials in Kerala and kumki elephants to go deep into the woods. 

The T23 tiger was also a centre of debate in the Madras High Court recently after the animal activists had approached the court against the order of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department to kill the tiger after it killed the fourth civilian. The court had instructed not to kill the tiger immediately and it may not be a man-eater. The principal chief conservator of the forest had said that there was no plan to kill the tiger and affirmed that efforts are being taken to capture it alive. 

As the tiger was on run, the drive to capture it had reached its 21st day on Thursday and the officials were facing a double whammy of detecting the wild cat and providing security to the local civilians and their fields. Earlier, after eights days of remaining out of sight, the tiger was spotted again on October 12 at Ombetta forest range in an image trap camera at 3 am. After having the sight and location, the forest department officials had intensified their search, not to miss the target this time.

However, they braced up a setback as they weren't able to locate the tiger. Amid these developments, the officials were informed by the passersby about the movement of a tiger near Masanagudi. According to reports, a group of men were repairing their vehicle in the night hours of Thursday (October 14) in Masanagudi. They had spotted a tiger passing the area and immediately informed the forest officials. A team of forest officials had arrived in the area at around 10 pm along with a team of doctors. After spotting the tiger in the woods, the officials had shot an anaesthetic injection towards the tiger to capturing it after it becomes unconscious. 

However, the tiger had managed to escape and disappeared into the woods. The officials had gone deep into the forest by using the kumki elephants and they had searched till 2 am on Friday. However, they didn't find the tiger and they returned back. In the morning hours of Friday, the forest department officials had again resumed the search in the woods and they spotted the tiger that was hunting down a deer and after spotting it, the officials had brought the area under their control and blocked the traffic for a while and they again had shot an anaesthetic injection towards the tiger and this time, they didn't miss the target. 

After injecting an injection, the tiger had lost its conscious after which the officials had put it into a cage and locked it up as they had finally caught the predator alive after three weeks of being on run. As the officials had taken the tiger under captivity, the people of Masanagudi and the Nilgiris had breathed a relief. The efforts to capture the tiger alive were carried out by eighty forest department officials, five drone cameras,  over 50 image trapping cameras, two Kumki elephants, and several sniffing dogs. The reports say that the T23 tiger will be lodged in a zoo and Tamil Nadu Forest Minister Ramachandran had visited the tiger and held a discussion with the officials and doctors' team on the next course of action. Minister Ramachandran has said that the tiger has been captured alive as per the orders of Chief Minister MK Stalin. 

 

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