Tiger on prowl in Ooty kills Toda tribal man

COIMBATORE: A 38-year-old tribal man was killed in a suspected tiger attack in a forest area near Ooty on Thursday.

The deceased, identified by the forest department as M Kendhar Kuttan, a Toda tribe member from Kollakodumund, a hamlet in ‘Governor Shola’, had gone looking for his buffaloes in the forest area after they did not return to the shed on Wednesday.

“When Kuttan too didn’t return, his family members launched a search at night, but couldn’t locate him. They resumed the search on Thursday morning and found his partially eaten body in the forest, almost a kilometre from their residential neighbourhood,” said a forest department staff.

After a preliminary examination by a team led by S Gowtham, Nilgiris District Forest Officer (DFO), the forest department believes the carnivore to be a tiger based on pug marks and scat (animal dropping) evidence.

“Samples have been sent for laboratory tests and camera traps placed to monitor the animal,” said a senior officer of the forest department.

The carnivore had consumed parts of his body, which was sent for a postmortem at Ooty Government Hospital. Tribal members Kumaresh and Ranjith Kuttan said rearing buffaloes is an integral activity in their culture.

“The forest department is insisting we relocate away from our traditional forest land. But our livelihood may be under stake as it will be difficult to rear buffaloes elsewhere. Instead, efforts should be taken by the forest department to capture the animal,” they said.

This is the second fatal incident of man-animal conflict in a fortnight. A 50-year-old woman who went to pluck tea leaves in an estate in Kalibata near Ooty was killed by a suspected carnivore.

“In her case, it was suspected to be a leopard attack, and it was reported almost 12 km away from here,” said an official.