While combing operations by the special Forest team to catch the elusive tiger that reportedly killed a farmer at Koodallur in Wayanad is on, wildlife managers are worried about the dearth of facilities to keep captured tigers.
The Forest department had set up an animal hospice and a palliative care unit for big cats at the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary at Pachady.
The hospice can accommodate five animals at a time, but all the slots were filled a few months ago.
The unit was envisaged to treat aged, injured or sick animals after capturing them from the wild. They are either rehabilitated in zoos or released into the wild after treatment, depending on their health condition.
Five cells and two squeeze cages to treat the animals have been set up at the unit. As many as seven tigers (four captured in 2022 and the remaining in 2023) have been accommodated in the unit now, and two of them have been accommodated in squeeze cages.
If one more tiger is captured and found not fit for release into the wild, wildlife managers will be in a fix. Earlier, wounded and aged tigers from the forest used to be shifted to zoos, but the zoo authorities are not willing to receive more animals owing to dearth of space.
“Somehow we have to manage seven tigers, and if one more animal is caught, it should be shifted to either Thiruvananthapuram or Thrissur. If the animal is not fit for shifting, one of the residents in the hospice should be shifted to the zoo,” sanctuary sources said.
Though the department had submitted a proposal to set up one more palliative care unit for captured big cats, it was yet to be approved, they added.
Meanwhile, combing operations on Saturday in Koodallur and Moodakkolly areas yielded no results. Though officials had set up 28 surveillance cameras, including three live cameras, no image of the tiger was recorded on Friday night. However, the authorities had set up one more cage with a live bait to woo the big cat.
