Elusive tigers give sleepless nights to residents, forest officials in border hamlets of Wayanad

Wayanad: Forest officials in Wayand are in a tight spot due to the human-animal conflict being played out in the district's border villages. While they are facing the ire of the villagers for not ending the raids by tigers, their efforts to capture the elusive tigers have been unsuccessful so far. 

Villagers say that tigers regularly target their hamlets for a quick kill and return to the jungle. So, tiger traps are in much demand in these villages.  

In the past few days, hamlets of Panavally that falls under the North Wayanad Forest Division near Mananthavadi, and Kolorottukunnu and Moolankavu under the Suthan Bathery range of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, have become trouble zones for the forest department, with increasing incidents of cattle-lifting and tiger raids. 

Residents have been protesting against the department's failure to trap the beasts and keep them in confinement. 

A forest team headed by Begur Range Officer K Ragesh and Periya Range Officer Remya Raghavan set up tiger traps at Panavalli near Tirunelli. 

At Kolorottukunnu, for over two weeks, the villagers have been demanding to trap a tiger that has been roaming the village at night.   

An irate crowd, incensed by the killing of a calf and a cow in two days, waylaid a team of forest officials at Moolankavu recently.

The forest department set up a couple of cages in the area and are waiting for the wild animals. 

North Wayanad DFO Martin Lowell told Onmanorama that aged tigers, unfit to find prey in the forest are raiding the villages in search of easy kills like calves, cows and other grazing cattle, he said. 

He said a cage has been set up at Panavally and the forest staff are on guard waiting for the animal to be trapped.