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'Man-eater' tiger that killed nine shot dead in India

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Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Tiger on the road in India. Photo by Hans-Jurgen Mager on Unsplash" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2022/overseas/10/10/tiger.jpg"/><figcaption>Tiger on the road in India. <em>Photo by Hans-Jurgen Mager on Unsplash</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>NEW DELHI, India - Indian police have shot dead a tiger dubbed the &quot;Man-eater of Champaran&quot; that killed at least nine people, in a major operation involving 200 people including trackers on elephants, officials said Sunday.</p><p>The big cat had terrorized locals on the fringes of the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Champaran in eastern India, killing at least six people in the past month including a woman and her eight-year-old son on Saturday.</p><p>Even before the two latest kills, authorities had designated the tiger, reportedly a male three or four years old, as a &quot;man-eater&quot;, meaning that it could be shot. </p><p>Earlier attempts to tranquillize the animal had failed.</p><p>&quot;Two teams went into the forest on two elephants on Saturday afternoon and the third one waited where we thought the tiger would exit -- and we fired five rounds to kill it there,&quot; local police chief Kiran Kumar told AFP.</p><p>With local villagers beating tin containers, it took about six hours for the team -- with eight shooters and about 200 forest department officials -- to complete the operation, Kumar said. </p><p>Officials said that large sugarcane fields made it easier for the tiger to stay hidden and attack local villagers and their livestock.</p><p>The victims included a 12-year-old girl dragged from her bed on Wednesday night, reports said.</p><p>Locals in the impoverished villages around the reserve in Bihar state stopped going out in the evening after the tiger&#x27;s first attack maimed a teenager in May.</p><p>But &quot;despite the lurking fear of tiger, it was not possible for us to confine ourselves in our homes as we needed to feed our cattle,&quot; Ram Kisun Yadav, a local villager told the Hindustan Times newspaper.</p><p>Locals celebrated after the animal was finally shot.</p><p>&quot;It was a sleepless night for the whole village. We kept beating tin containers to shoo away the tiger if at all it was hiding near our village,&quot; villager Paltu Mahato told the Hindustan Times.</p><p>Conservationists blame the rapid expansion of human settlements around forests and key wildlife corridors for animals like elephants and tigers for an increase in man-animal conflict in parts of India.</p><p>Nearly 225 people were killed in tiger attacks between 2014 and 2019 in India, according to government figures.</p><p>More than 200 tigers were killed by poachers or electrocution between 2012 and 2018, the data showed.</p><p>India is home to around 70 percent of the world&#x27;s tigers and the tiger population was estimated at 2,967 in 2018.</p><div><strong>bb/stu/mtp</strong></div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1710663" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

Indian police have shot dead a tiger dubbed the 'Man-eater of Champaran' that killed at least nine people, in a major operation involving 200 people,