Tigress kills Gond tribal women who happens to be mother of animal tracker
By Newsmeter Network Published on 19 Sept 2020 4:29 PM IST
Adilabad: In yet another instance of man-animal conflict, a tigress from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary (TWS) in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra, about 35 km from Adilabad town, killed a 60 year old woman on Saturday afternoon.
The woman, Laxmibai Bheemrao Dadanje, a Gond tribal from Patan Bori village was working in her field at Wasri hamlet of Pipri gram panchayat nearly 2 km away from the NH 44 when the tigress attacked her from behind and killed her.
The area falls under the eco-sensitive zone on the Maharashtra side of the inter State border that Adilabad district shares with Yavatmal.
The Maharashtra government had closed down all heavy industries including stone crushers a few years back after declaring it as an eco-sensitive zone in view of the tiger population in TWS.
The Sanctuary is famous with wildlife photographers and wildlife enthusiasts from Telangana, especially Hyderabad. Recently, Telugu actor Allu Arjun had been on a safari in the park.
The tigress, aged about 20 months is in news since it came out of the park in July and started hunting cattle and sheep from nearby villages. In one instance, villagers tried to attack the tigress with sticks and axes but it fortunately escaped.
The manner in which the tigress was hunting domestic animals showed that it had not learnt all the techniques of hunting its prey. Those on its trail after it started hunting cattle pointed out that it left the carcass without touching it and never returned to eat it in some cases.
The big cat was photographed by a daring photographer a fortnight ago when it was relaxing after fedding on its domestic animal kill. This is the only photograph for reference.
The killing of Laxmibai is also significant as she was the mother of Bapu Rao Dadanje, an experienced animal tracker in the area. He was with the Forest department since long and had even participated in tracking of the famous Avni tigress which was shot dead in November 18 in Yavatmal after it allegedly turned man eater.
