Valmiki tiger
A Valmiki tiger has died under suspicious circumstances. Officials in Bihar’s Valmiki Tiger Reserve insist the tigress was killed in a territorial clash with a male. Claw wounds and pugmarks support that version. But a wire found near her neck tells another story.
The postmortem quickly ruled out strangulation. Convenient. Wires are the simplest weapons of poachers — cheap, silent, and often hidden under official explanations. As our cornerstone on Snares and Traps: Tigers Caught in Silent Killers shows, they are the most widespread tiger killers across Asia. Why was such a wire lying inside a “protected” reserve?
Valmiki Tiger Reserve has seen weak enforcement and rising human pressure. To dismiss the wire as irrelevant is to dismiss the truth. Natural clashes happen, but wires don’t appear in forests without human hands.
This tiger death raises a darker question: was it really a fight, or another poaching case dressed up as nature?
The Valmiki tiger article
Based on Patna Press, India
Photo via Patna Press.
