An adult tiger was found dead on Saturday in the Sakurda forests in Goa’s Dharbandura district, with its teeth and nails missing, raising concerns about possible poaching and renewed calls to implement the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s (NTCA) recommendation to declare a tiger reserve in the state.
A forest official, who requested anonymity, said: “We recovered a partially decomposed body and the cause of death was not immediately clear. At first glance, we can only say that teeth and fingernails are missing.”
The body, whose post-mortem report is still pending, was found in Aalut, not far from the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary in Mollem, the official added.
Previously, a family of five tigers – an adult female and four cubs – were found poisoned to death in 2020. Another tiger was found killed in a trap in 2009.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), which submitted a report on tiger deaths in 2020, had said that not declaring a tiger sanctuary in Goa would mean that the state was a “death trap for tigers”.
“Within the Western Ghat landscape complex, Goa and the North Karnataka region have the potential to increase overall tiger numbers by providing targeted management inputs to protected areas in the region.”
“The protected areas in Goa (Mhadei WLS and Mollem WLS) are part of the Western Ghats landscape complex, which boasts the largest population of tigers in the world. This landscape contains several interconnected tiger reserves and protected areas along with reserve forests. However, factors such as plantations, agriculture and industrial infrastructure development activities such as expansion of roads and railway lines are threatening the connectivity of existing habitats in the Western Ghats. Without raising the legal status of protected areas in Goa to that level,” the NTCA said. “For tigers and putting in place a strong protection system, the state may become a death trap for tigers spreading in this natural area.”
“Declaring the reserve as a tiger reserve will provide much needed access to technical, financial and monitoring support from NTCA to protect the conservation values of the reserve. It will also empower local communities residing within the reserve by providing access to development opportunities,” NTCA added.
On the recommendation of the NTCA, the Bombay High Court in Goa, in July 2023, directed the state government to notify the Mahadi WLS and other areas as a tiger reserve under Section 38-V (1) of the Wildlife Protection Act within three months, while criticizing the state government for continuing to “steadfastly avoid notifying the tiger reserve”.
The NTCA sought to establish a tiger reserve in about 750 sq km of Goa’s Western Ghats forests, which includes the Mahadi, Bhagwan Mahaveer (Mullim), Netravali and Kotigao wildlife reserves, which are contiguous with the Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary and Anshi National Park – Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka, and on one side the tiger corridor in Sindhudurg district. Maharashtra.
The Goa government has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court’s directions, saying that “the protected area proposed to be declared a tiger reserve has a population of about 100,000 people, spread across several villages and who have been living there for more than 50 years; they would absolutely not want to move elsewhere.”
