Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Kaziranga tiger shot dead while feeding on forest dweller

Now here is a news which I am finding difficult to comment on.
Even after almost 15 days I could not make who was right and who was wrong?
Title is “Kaziranga tiger shot dead while feeding on forest dweller” published in Times of india dated March 24, 2009.
To cut the story short:
A tiger (old to his age, finding difficult to get the preyin jungle) moves out of Kaziranga to near by village and attacks a villager. He enjoys his newly tasted human blood and is now hiding somewhere near by.
Villagers are angry and scared for last few weeks and finally decided to go in search of tiger to kill him.
In the mean time the forest department become active and get into the act of catching lion alive.
After few days of search they finally meet him sitting in a bamboo grove.
The news spread in air very quickly and sooner a large mob was around the bamboo grove.
Being in mob, people were hyper active and more interested in killing the beast.
The police and the forest department were struggling to manage the mob and tranquillizing the tiger.
The mob finally went berserk and a group tried getting closer and attacking the tiger.
Though old he was still a tiger. But people realized it a bit late. Inspite of ~1000 people surrounding him and getting closer he showed the courage and just in a fraction of seconds pounced and ripped off a chunk of a guy's neck. The man was dead, victim of overconfidence.
The atmosphere turned suddenly and was filled with anger and fear.
The mob went totally out of control.
Policemen tried controlling and shot some 20 aimless rounds. So aimless that one bullet hit the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) veterinarian himself who had arrived to tranquillize the tiger!!!
Now it was time for the tiger to go berserk. He came out of the bamboo grove and attacked a policeman.
In the mean time an aimless bullet hit the tiger and the story was over.

Now I am wondering where things went wrong?
Is it wrong on tiger's part to become old enough not to be able to find a prey in jungle?
Is it wrong on People's part to try to overcome the fear of sudden attack by tiger?
Is it wrong on policemen's part not to be able to control a huge mob of 1000 people?
Is it wrong on forest department's part not to be able to tranquillize tiger quickly?
What would have if forest department would have managed to tranquilize the tiger.
Would they have managed to take the tiger out safely through an angry mob of 1000 people?
Had the tiger forgotten the taste of human flesh and would have started living happily within the limits of jungle?
How long would he have manged to survive?
How much useful it would have been to save and keep such an old maneater tiger in zoos?
Why it took so many weeks for the forest department to get ready and catch the tiger?
Had they tried it at earlier stage, might be things would have been different.
Or did they tried earlier but not so seriously?
I am still working on the problem.
Guessing who was at fault!!!
If you get the answer lets talk!!

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