Two tigers found dead in MP forests

Umaria/Seoni: A tigress and a male cub died in different forest areas of Madhya Pradesh in the last 24 hours, officials said today.

A two-year-old tigress was yesterday found dead in a well in the area of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR) in Umaria district.

"The tigress might have fallen into the well while running away from an attack by wild animals and drowned," BTR's ranger Vijay Shankar Shrivastava said.

The forest department was probing the feline's death from various angles, he said.

The well is located in Milli village, which was included in the BTR's core area some years back.

Besides, a mutilated carcass of a male cub was yesterday found in the Karmajhiri range of Pench National Park in Seoni district.

The park's field director, Shubhranjan Sen, said it seemed as if a powerful male tiger active in the area had attacked the cub.

"The pug marks of a tiger were spotted at the site.

The marks of dragging the cub were also seen. The postmortem report indicated that the cub's skull bones were broken," he said.

There was no sign of poaching at the site, he said.

A tigress was recently spotted with its three cubs in the area. The dead cub might be one of them, Pench National Park's deputy director K K Gurwani said.