KOHORA, Dec 9 � The unfortunate incident that occurred recently leading to the death of a mature female Royal Bengal tiger at Bosagaon in Kaziranga could have been avoided had there been proper coordination between the law enforcing agencies and the Forest Department. After the death of a species that is very much on the verge of extinction, the blame game has started with an intention to divert the attention of the inquiry commission set up by the State Forest Minister, which is at present probing the tigress death case at Bosagoan.
�The situation at Kaziranga was very unfortunate which was in fact avoidable. Police should have controlled the crowd, secondly, mediapersons must not be allowed to go near the wild species, which otherwise leads to unnecessary tension�, said Dr Anuwaruddin Choudhary, a reputed wildlife activitist. According to a highly placed source, the factors that are responsible for the tragic death of the tiger are lack of proper standard protocol required to be followed at the time of appearance of wild animals in human habitat, lack of proper coordination between the security forces and Forest Department and lack of awareness.
Sources in the Forest Department at Kaziranga said that they did not do any homework at their local level which led to unnecessary chaos at the place of incident. The officers present at the site seemed to be mere spectators, the sources said.
When pointed out, a technical expert dealing with tranquillizer said that although the Forest Department is the custodian of the tranquillizer gun, but only a veterinary doctor is trained to operate the gun since it has to be loaded with chemicals like catamil along with other medicines in proper proportion, which is infact 10,000 times stronger than chemicals like morphine. Secondly, tranquillizer gun cannot be operated on ground. For that, veterinary doctors have to get on elephant back so that the dart is able to hit the target animal smoothly and ensure that the species does not run away towards water body to cool up its body heat, which normally increases once the medicine starts reacting, because it can be fatal when it comes in contact with water.
But a sources added that had there been a senior level officer who had experience in dealing with such crisis, then definitely the death of the tigress could have been avoided.
Another highly placed source said that Kohora police comprises of quick response team (QRT), who were requested by the Forest Department to assist them to control the situation. But the fact remains that due to complete absence of any action plan on the part of the conservation authority right from higher officials to lower rank and lack of coordination with the law enforcing agents, the situation went out of control.
Meanwhile, the Four-lane Demand Committee has strongly denied that their members had instigated the public for killing the Royal Bengal tiger. Senior functionary of the committee Hem Bora said they strongly condemned such baseless news published in a section of the Assamese Press. He also said that the Forest Department and some media are giving undue importance to the tiger death case instead of welfare of human lives.
