Tiger, Tiger, Once Again
Lucknow, January 19 (TNA) In an incident that is almost a day-to-day replica of what happened 12 years ago, the northwestern outskirts of Lucknow are facing fear and terror on account of the presence of a wild tiger in the vicinity. As events unfold, it appears that the place, the weather and the circumstances are almost the same that were there in January 2012.
Since December 3, 2024, the normal lives of hundreds of people in the north-western outskirts of Lucknow, along the road to Hardoi, have been seriously disrupted after the sudden emergence of a tiger in the surrounding areas. Residents of villages in Kakori and Malihabad have been living under the constant threat of this wandering tiger which has been preying on livestock and eluding all efforts to capture it or tranquilise it.
As of January 19 – 50 days later – the tiger remains elusive, raising fears that such unwanted visits by tigers to Lucknow could become frequent in coming years. Its presence came to light with the sighting of tiger tracks and pug marks in Rehmankheda, where a huge campus of the Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture (CISH), an institution under the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) is located.
Its sprawling 132-hectare campus is largely forested to facilitate the cultivation of vegetables and fruits, especially mango, for research purposes. Pugmarks were found on subsequent days multiple times across villages such as Mandauli, Rehmankheda Meethenagar, Khalispur, Sahilamau and Ularapur. as well as in nearby forest regions.
The tiger has since attacked several animals, including blue bulls, goats etc. Forest Department search teams installed camera traps and one of them captured a fully-grown, healthy adult tiger on December 16. After failed attempts to capture it, on January 4 two trained elephants named Sulochana and Dyna were deployed to join the search.
So far, Forest Department teams have been camping in the area, patrolling the ground and also perched machans set up at some points. That the tiger is well-versed in such human tactics is obvious from the fact that the tiger has continued to kill and eat livestock and yet eludes the net traps set up to lure it.
The entire area of Rehmankheda and the CISH premises resemble a place under siege, with media persons, District Forest Officer and forest employees from Lucknow, Sitapur and Lakhimpur Kheri, armed guards, activists of the Wildlife Trust of India, veterinarians from Lucknow and Kanpur, and others engaged in hectic and leisurely activity, depending on the time of the day.
The incident is almost a repetition of a similar one in 2012 when such a hide-and-seek between the wandering tiger and the excited captors continued for more than 100 days. It was in January 2012, when a wild tiger having strayed from the Terai forests to the vicinity of Lucknow, stayed in the Rehmankheda jungles for about 108 days, before being finally tranquilised and captured on April 25, 2012.
Several sightings
The area where the tiger is supposed to be has been cordoned off around the railway line to trap the tiger. The tiger is constantly changing its location and among the villages where residents have been advised to be alert and not venture out unnecessarily are: Hasnapur, Dugoli, Gurdin Kheda, Katauli, Kasmandi, Nai Basti Dhanewa, Mohammadnagar, Budhadia, Kusmaura, Rehmatnagar where several people have seen the tiger from close quarters.
The incident is almost a repetition of a similar one in 2012 when such a hide-and-seek between the wandering tiger and the excited captors continued for more than 100 days. It was in January 2012, when a wild tiger having strayed from the Terai forests to the vicinity of Lucknow, stayed in the Rehmankheda jungles for about 108 days, before being finally tranquilised and captured on April 25, 2012.
Then too, the animal was sighted in CISH premises and villages of Rehmankheda, Ulrapur and Behata. Similarly, it had hunted on nilgai, eluded traps and nets for several weeks, and it took the captors a huge effort involving a chase after which they could tranquilise the tiger. It was later put into a specially crafted and guarded truck and later taken to the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve and released there.
The tiger, nicknamed ‘Badshah’ by forest employees, had not attacked any human. Three elephant-mounted teams, besides dozens of forest guards, were involved in the massive operation in which the then minister for forests also paid a visit to the area.
Long journey
Rahul Shukla, a member of Tiger and Terrain, an NGO working for tiger conservation, and himself a veteran wildlife expert and writer of several books on tiger behaviour, says the tiger could have strayed to Lucknow from the southern Kheri jungles in search of its own territory after losing its way owing to dense sugarcane crop and fog.
The growing urban sprawl of Lucknow has reached the corridor which has been used by wild animals in the past. On the north and northwest of Lucknow, lies the forest area along the Sharda Canal that goes right up to Hardoi, Sitapur, Shahjahanpur, Lakhimpur and Dudhwa. This heavily forested area is also close to human settlements and sugarcane fields. Experts say that wandering tigers stay for some time where they can find prey, and then move on within the dense forest trail.
In the past few years, there have been frequent reports of leopards and other wild animals being sighted near human settlements on Lucknow’s outskirts. Incidentally, a night safari and a much larger zoo is coming up on the north-eastern outskirts of Lucknow along the Kukrail, a minor river. As the city’s relentless growth on all directions continues, chances of more such wild animals straying into human settlements cannot be ruled out – as has been happening frequently in Bangaluru, Nagpur, Mysuru, Coimbatore and Mumbai.
— Ratan Mani Lal
(The author is a veteran Journalist and has held various positions, including editor of Hindustan Times, The Times of India at Lucknow, and Dainik Bhaskar in Madhya Pradesh.)