Tiger attacks: Three dead in three days
Jaideep Hardikar / DNA Saturday, February 6, 2010 23:08 IST Email


Three women have been killed in tiger attacks in as many days in Chandrapur along the fringes buffering the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), causing panic among the locals and consternation among the forest officials.


The fresh incidents, however, occurred when women penetrated dense forests to collect firewood unlike in the previous cases when the wild cat came out in search of prey.

On Saturday, 40-year-old Manda Todpakwar from Singdhari village
near Vaseri in Sindewadi tehsil reportedly went to collect firewood into the Seoni forest that buffers the TATR, when the beast attacked her. Manda died on the spot, which is barely 3 km from where Sundarabai Abaji Nannavare, 50, was attacked on Friday.

Tiger-human conflict first came into sharp focus in Chandrapur’s forests along the TATR with a series of deaths in tiger attacks in 2006. The death toll since then stands at 60; in 2007, bowing to the people’s mounting pressure, the chief wildlife warden had to order slaying of a tiger that had become a threat to human life.

The fresh conflagration, which comes after almost a year’s lull, began on Thursday. Nalu Divakar Ghodmare of a village in the same area was killed in the attack in the Seoni forests - all three attacks took place within the periphery of 10 km.