The hunt for MDT23, a tiger that has reportedly killed two individuals and several cattle, has so far been a competition of unequals – a tiger in its home territory and a difficult jungler struggling to find it with camera traps. The man’s land In a sense, this chase exemplifies the escalating human-animal conflict in the region and its many flashpoints.
On 1 October, a shepherd was killed by a tiger in Masinagudi. This was the second confirmed killing of a tiger. This created tension among the local people. With the opposition party taking steps, the situation reached its peak.
Locals blocked the road demanding to shoot the tiger. Because the tiger had eaten the victim’s body parts for the first time. Soon, most of the media started branding the animal as a man-eater. The atmosphere in Mudumalai was pleasant.
Soon, Chief Wildlife Warden Shekhar Kumar Neeraj issued an order to hunt the animal. This was immediately treated as an order to shoot the tiger. He had to clarify time and again that the hunting order was to be understood in the light of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. This meant that shooting was the last resort after attempts to pacify, control and capture the animal failed.
To ensure that the tiger is caught alive, he is leading the operation involving around 100 personnel. As if sensing the python, the tiger, now known as Mudumalai Division Tiger 23 (MDT23), has calmed down. It has not caused any further human killings, as several teams of forest personnel, with the help of technology, have been searching for more than a week in heavy rains. “If three people are killed and eaten, it should be declared man-eater. Then it should be removed from the forest,” says AJT Johnsingh, a conservationist and wildlife biologist. For the record, the tiger has not yet been declared a man-eater.
backstory
The tiger has killed two people. It is suspected that two more, notorious for illegal resorts in the highly conflicting landscape of Gudalur and Sigur plateau, and more than a dozen cattle were killed. It was in 2010 that MDT23 was first recorded by a camera trap in Bandipur Tiger Reserve (BTR). Bandipur, along with Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary and Nagarhole National Park, provides the largest contiguous habitat for Bengal tigers in India. It is believed to be home to one fifth of India’s tiger population.
Later in 2012, the tiger was recorded by camera trap in MTR. Since then, it is believed to have established a region encompassing the ranges of Masinagudi, Karagudi and MTR. A dominant male, the tiger began raising cattle in 2018. It is suspected that four people have died in MTR and adjoining Gudalur in the last two years.
MTR’s field director D. Venkatesh said the tiger could be 12-14 years old and has injuries, possibly in a territorial fight with another tiger or during hunting. “There has been a behavioral change, possibly due to age or injuries,” he said. “It has been confirmed that 20 cattle have been poached in all areas bordering its territory in the last two years.”
S Maran, a shepherd from the Irula community, noted that local herders had known about the presence of MDT23 in the area for several months. “This is a well-known cattle-thief, and we understand the dangers of going into the wild. However, grazing cattle, collecting dung and selling it is our only means of livelihood,” he said.
Although the ban on cattle-grazing in the core area of the Tiger Reserve is strictly enforced by the Forest Department, it is more difficult to regulate grazing in the buffer zone due to the presence of several tribal settlements and recent settlers, many of whom Own fields in the area, cultivate crops and herd cattle.
Wildlife and Nature Conservation Trust founder N. “This is an important fact,” Sadiq Ali said. “Many cattle grazing in buffer zones do not belong to members of tribal communities, who are paid a small fee by the owners to care for their cattle until maturity, and take them to slaughter.” She said that cattle should be given free of cost or at a subsidized rate to shepherds and fodder to prevent them from entering tiger habitats, where there is a high potential for problematic human-tiger interactions.
Conservationists point to a number of factors, including increasing tiger populations and habitat loss in the Sigur Plateau, to explain the increase in problematic interactions between tigers, elephants and other wildlife and humans. He says the rapid increase in the number of tigers in the landscape, which is now better protected, is another factor to consider. As tigers age, a smaller male typically replaces the larger tiger, which is pushed into ‘sub-optimal’ habitats with a reduced prey-base. “It is no coincidence that the last three man-eaters in the Nilgiris were in fragmented habitats in Gudalur and Upper Nilgiris,” says one of them.
Yet the payoff remains: several teams of forest personnel, aided by drones, have been on the lookout for MDT 23 for more than a week.
Although the tiger is believed to be injured and unable to hunt, it is using its intelligence and knowledge of the terrain to escape from pursuers. In a single night, it entered its home territory at Singara and Masinagudi from Devan Estate in Gudalur – a distance of more than 20 kilometers by road – in a matter of hours. This tiger appears to be highly intelligent as it was not seen by camera traps for a few days when the intensive search began, while other tigers in the region were sighted. A top forest department official said, “Tigers are not characteristic, MDT23 does not seem to be reverting to the killings committed by them.” “After having eaten a significant portion of the animal, he failed to return to the carcass. Our vet and team were monitoring the carcass in the hope of pacifying the tiger, but to no avail.
challenging terrain
Mr Venkatesh said efforts to capture the tiger had become more complicated as it went back to its home territory in the MTR. “At Gudalur, when we first started our efforts to pacify him, we could monitor him as the landscape was one of hills planted with tea. However, once they re-entered the MTR, they hid in the dense underground, making them extremely difficult to detect.
Further complications include the presence of other tigers in the area. This means forest department officials will have to compare the stripe pattern and known injuries with MDT23.
OSAI President K. Kalidasan said that it is always sad to remove a tiger from its natural habitat. “However, conservation is about the bigger picture and ensuring human-animal coexistence.” He mentioned. “If people continue to feel threatened by the presence of a large wildlife because of this particular tiger, there may be retaliation like poisoning. That’s why we need to ensure that the tiger is removed as soon as possible and safely.”
land use in conflict zones
Human-animal coexistence in the Nilgiris has been weak over the years. One of the areas with the most problematic contact between wildlife and humans is Gudalur, where six people have died in elephant attacks this year, besides one in MDT 23.
Local conservationists have been demanding the re-wiring of Section 17 land notified under the Gudlur Janmam Estates (Abolition and Change of Ryotwari) Act, 1969. Most of Gudalur’s land once belonged to the Nilambur royal family, who leased it to Chota. landholder. It was to be regulated by the Janmam Estate Act, but the cases have been pending for more than half a century. Under Sections 8, 9 and 10, title should have been given to all small landholders and sub-lessees, while under Section 17, the leases of large corporations could be decided by the government on a case-by-case basis, Shola According to the trust’s founder Tarsh Thekekara. “The most important overarching issue in the long-term solution of negative human-wildlife relationships is the problem of unstable land tenure and widespread encroachment on forestland.”
D. Boominathan, Western Ghats (Nilgiris) landscape co-ordinator for the World Wide Fund for Nature, said the drivers of problematic human-animal relationships need to be studied with the use of historical records. “We need to analyze historical data to locate conflict hotspots in order to formulate appropriate mitigation strategies.”
B Ramakrishnan, of the Department of Zoology and Wildlife Biology at the Government Arts College in Udhagamandalam, is studying the ‘vial’ in the Gudalur landscape. He said a three-month study showed that 84 out of 86 ‘vials’ were being used by elephants, while leopards were seen in 79 and tigers were seen in 13. Studies also pointed to a relationship between the number of ‘vials’. and prevalence of problematic human-elephant interactions in forest ranges. Between 2007 and 2019, 79 human deaths were recorded in the Gudalur division, of which 22 were recorded in the Cherambadi range, which has the highest number of ‘vials’ in the landscape.
MDT23 remains elusive, dominating it in its home territory, as humans struggle to capture it for weeks in an area that seems to favor the animal. Chief Wildlife Warden Shri Neeraj said that on the basis of the data collected by the Forest Department, the strategy for catching the tiger is being developed day by day.
“Once it is captured, our experts will study the tiger and its condition will be assessed. Its health standards and behavior will be taken into account before making a decision on whether a tiger can be relocated or kept in permanent captivity.
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