‘Tiger removed from display area’
Udaipur : The 15-year old Tigress Damini who was mauled to death by a tiger, a day back at Sajjangarh Zoological Park, was cremated on Friday. Earlier the day, the forest department followed the standard operating procedure prescribed for dealing with tiger’s death and held a postmortem by a medical board. Meanwhile, Kumar the 13-year old tiger that killed Damini has been removed from the display area of the park and kept under observation for two days. The big cat had sustained some scratches when he broke open a part of the channeling fencing and barged into Damini’s enclosure.
“We have framed a committee with members from the forest department as well as civil engineering who would make a thorough checkup of the entire fencing work in all the enclosures in the park area. Though a routine checkup is done in frequent intervals, however, this is a technical checkup to find if there is any problem with the designing or quality of fencing” Chief Conservator of Forest (Wild Life) Rajkumar Singh told Udaipur Kiran. The officer also said that the present channeling and fencing work is as per the standard norms of the Central Zoo Authority of India which is applicable to all zoos and biological parks.
Both tigers had adjustment issues
According to zoo sources, Damini was among the first few inmates who were brought in the park after its inauguration in 2015. She was shifted here from Rajiv Gandhi Zoo in Pune while Kumar was brought here in 2017 from Pillikula Zoo, Mangalore. The zoo authorities had on earlier occasions tried to bring close both the big cats for breeding purpose, and kept them in adjacent enclosures, however, there were adjustment issues between the two. Kumar had on two prior occasions pounced on the fencing and injured Damini, sources informed.
“Kumar had been aggressive from birth and was dominating while Damini was timid in comparison to him. When he attacked her, she was unprepared perhaps and didnt have the opportunity enough to defend herself” Singh said. The tiger was too aggressive and he dragged the tigress to several meters and the caretakers had to toil hard to scare him away to the holding area. ” Tigers are unpredictable many times. In the wild too, the tigresses are at risk sometimes but they have the chance to escape but here in the park there was space confinement. Kumar’s aggression either could be for territory or due to the mating season, for the time being, he has been kept under observation” Singh claimed.