A tiger that had strayed into a village in the Sunderbans was trapped in a cage early on Thursday.
This is the sixth case of a tiger straying near human habitats in the mangrove delta since December. Three of them had to be tranquilised.
The latest incident happened near Deulbari village, in Kultali block of South 24-Parganas, around 90km from Kolkata.
The pugmarks of the big cat were first spotted — under the Petkulchand bridge over a narrow creek — by a group of women on their way to catch fish on the banks of the Matla river on Wednesday morning.
A team of foresters arrived and the area under the bridge was surrounded by a net.
“A trap cage was laid in the evening and the tiger was finally captured around 3am. The tiger is aged around 5-6 years and is possibly a female,” said Milan Mandal, divisional forest officer of the South 24-Parganas forest division.
“The tiger will be taken for a medical examination to find out if it is fit for release into the forests.”
The tiger is suspected to have come out of the Ajmalmari forest, around 5km from the bridge.
The pandemic has aggravated the human-wild conflict in the Sunderbans. Over 30 people have died in tiger attacks while trying to enter the forests to catch fish and crabs, according to the forest department.
A section of foresters has attributed the rise in cases of tigers straying into villages to the damaged nylon nets that surround the forests of the Sunderbans.
