Team Herald
PANJIM: The State Forest Department on Tuesday refuted claims that a tigress and her two cubs had been spotted in the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, though environmentalist Rajendra Kerkar asserted that the department was always in denial when it came to tigers in Goa.
Chief Wildlife Warden Umakant said that after examining the viral video of the tigress and her cubs, the department had found that it was three years old. He added that the department had made a special recce of the area and spoken to local villagers, but no one had recorded any tiger sightings in the recent past.
Reacting to the chief wildlife warden's statement, environmentalist Rajendra Kerkar stressed that Forest Department officials always played down tiger sightings in the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary area.
"In January 2020, when four tigers, including three cubs, were killed, the department was unaware of the incident and he had taken the onus of informing them. It was only after I flagged the issue, the Chief Wildlife Warden and other officials rushed to Golavali village in Sattari taluka to investigate the tiger deaths," Kerkar said.
Following this incident, three persons were arrested for poisoning the tigress and its three cubs, while the Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) had constituted a two-member team to investigate the deaths.
Such past incidents go to show that there were tigers in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and as recently as last week he had found tiger droppings in the forest, Kerkar said.