Tiger electrocuted in Seoni district; 25th big cat death in MP since January

A sub-adult tiger was electrocuted and its carcass was dumped into a well in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh, taking the number of big cat deaths in the state to 25 since January, a forest department official said on Monday.

A sub-adult tiger was electrocuted and its carcass was dumped into a well in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh, taking the number of big cat deaths in the state to 25 since January, a forest department official said on Monday. A man from whose farm well the carcass was recovered on Sunday has been arrested, and further investigation was underway, he said. The tiger, aged one-and-a-half to two years, was electrocuted in a revenue area under the South Seoni forest division, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) L Krishnamoorthy told PTI over phone. Post-mortem examination of the carcass was conduced as per National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) guidelines, he said. Madhya Pradesh, which had 785 tigers as per the 2022 census -- the highest for a state in the country -- has recorded 11 tiger deaths, including cubs, since April 2, when a big cat was found dead in Burhanpur district. The first tiger death this year was reported on January 7 in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, and since then 24 more big cats, including cubs, have died, officials said. Madhya Pradesh is home to nine tiger reserves.