Guards at Kaziranga National Park Gunned Down Male Royal Bengal Tiger
Kaziranga Update: Nothing is going well these days at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. In series of a bad news forest guards at the park gunned down a male royal Bengal Tiger while he was trying to tranquilise it – besides seriously injuring a specialist who had been sent to oversee the assignment.
And this came barely a week after two Independent legislators – both former cadres of the United Liberation Front of Assam and at present associate members of the ruling Congress – went on a rampage inside the park after being caught fishing illegally.
Forest ranger Dharanidhar Boro said the tiger attacked and devoured a man named Gaya Chauhan on March 18. It killed another man on Monday morning near Hapargaon village some 8 km from the western edge of Kaziranga. Then the park officials sent a team under veterinarian Prasanta Boro.
Notably, Kaziranga, spread over Golaghat and Nagaon districts of Assam, is home to over 55 per cent of the world’s one-horned rhinos. Besides, the last census in 2000 had pegged the Park’s tiger population at 86, which meant 16.8 tiger per 100 sq km, arguably the healthiest in India.
However, senior wildlife officials in Guwahati said the 860 sq km Kaziranga National Park was facing a problem of plenty, resulting in a drastic rise in man-animal conflicts.
