THOUGH Madhya Pradesh has highest population of stripped cats but at the same time, the State is also going through controversy of having higher rate of poaching cases. On an average, one of two tigers are being killed by poachers in a month. According to report of Madhya Pradesh Illegal Poaching Cases (D-1), 14 tigers have been poached in State from January to November (11 months) this year. Even in past five years, there are 89 such cases alone from Madhya Pradesh. The report revealed that poachers were active highly during year 2021 that was time of COVID pandemic. During pandemic, shockingly 21 tigers were poached. In order monitor the tigers’ mortality, the Forest Department prepares D-1 report that includes method used by poachers to kill the cat, reason of mortality, details of accused after arresting in poaching cases, etc.

 

The D-1 report revealed that in past five years, 89 tigers died and out of this, 19 were electrocuted, two were shot dead and one was poisoned. If we check the record of year 2023 (January to November), out of 14 deaths, five were electrocuted and one was shot dead and reason for remaining eight deaths is still being investigated. The latest three cases of poaching in Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary, Seoni and Shahdol. On October 17, tiger poaching case was registered in Ratapani after report was received about killing of tigress, ten km away from the sanctuary. In this case, forest team could not recover the tiger’s remain even after one and half months. In Seoni, tiger carcass was found on January 11, 2023. The tiger was electrocuted and case was registered under forest act.

 

The third latest incident held in Shahdol where a tiger carcass was found on May 17-18 in Bedara beat of Vyohari. Postmortem report revealed that the tiger shot to dead. As per census 2022, there are 785 tigers in state with seven tiger reserves Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Satpura, Pench, Panna, Sanjay Dubri and latest Veerangana Durgavati is recently set up. During year 2019 there were 20 tigers killed by poachers while in year 2020 there were 17 poaching, in year 2021 there were 21 poaching, in 2022 there were 17 poaching and in year 2023 (till November) there are 14 poaching cases. In year 2023, a tiger was killed in Panna Tiger Reserve (Kisangarh) on January 3, Seoni (Rukhar) January 11, Narmadapuram January 12, Vyohari (Shahdol) January 24, Panna (Manor) January 31, Umaria (Pali) February 4, Sidhi (Sanjay National Park) March 12, , Umaria- BTR April 18, Shahdol-Vyohari May 17, Jabalpur June 2, Balaghat June 4, Raisen (Obedullaganj) June 22, Seoni September 27 and in Raisen, tiger was killed on October 16.