Bharatpur’s lone tigress dead, officials say it was heat stroke

10 June, 2005

Its bird count falling, Bharatpur’s parched Keoladeo National Park claimed its latest victim this week when its lone tigress died of a ‘‘heat stroke’’.R P Kapoor, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Rajasthan, confirmed that ‘‘the young tigress seemed to have died due to acute water shortage and excessive heat’’ over several days.
The tigress had migrated to the Park in 1999 and used to be the star tourist attraction. According to official records, the last Bharatpur tiger before her was hunted down in 1962.
‘‘I visited the Park recently and found the water situation grave. We have been pumping water in some pools but in many areas minor water reserves have completely dried up,’’ Kapoor told The Indian Express.
Water supply to the national park from the Panchna dam was stopped last year as local farmers backed by a dozen MLAs claimed they were being denied irrigation water.
On the death of the tigress, Bharatpur Field Director Arun Prasad said: ‘‘We have not found any sign of snare or trapping—the neck and ankle bones were intact. We can’t rule out poisoning or snake bite till viscera tests are done. Samples are being sent to Dehradun and Jaipur. At this moment, heat stroke seems to be the only reason.’’
Sources said that the final kill made by the tigress was spotted as recently as Monday. ‘‘On Thursday, our ground staff picked up a foul smell that they thought was coming from another kill. But this morning we found the carcass of the tigress,’’ said a Park official.
Prasad claimed the Park authorities were also trying to collect sample of the kill to ascertain if it was poisoned. ‘‘We will also conduct a DNA test at Hyderabad to know from where she migrated,’’ Kapoor said.
With the death of the Bharatpur tigress, Rajasthan’s tiger map shrunk further. As was first reported by this newspaper, tigers have already disappeared from Sariska and Keladevi.
The Bharatpur tigress was first spotted in mid-1999 by Bibhu Prakash, member of a Bombay Natural History Society research team. She was very young—not more than 2 years old—and probably came into the Keoladeo National Park from the buffer area of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve (Mandrail) by following the Gambhir river course.
The then Park manager Shruti Sharma remembered her as ‘‘very shy’’ and said that the tigress was too young for a natural death. ‘‘There were several proposals to relocate the lonely tigress in last few years. Last year, a plan was afoot to shift her to Sariska,’’ she said. But as Kapoor pinted out: ‘‘Sariska itself became unsafe for tigers.’’