The forest department has intensified foot patrolling in the core forest area of the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) following the death of a tiger by getting trapped in a wire snare here on Saturday. Members of a special tiger protection force are carrying out combing operation inside the core forest and around water holes to remove snares. The dead body of a sub-adult tiger trapped in a metal wire snare was found near the Khatoda gate of TATR.

Two primary reasons of tiger deaths/injuries are laying snares for meat, and electrocution of farm fence practised by farmers to avoid crop depredation, wildlife experts believe. Conservation photographer and founder member of Group Conservation Lenses and Wildlife (CLAW) Sarosh Lodhi said, "A nursing mother tigress was injured in Kolsa range of Tadoba last week owing to a snare. The snare nuisance is growing and the worrying part is both these incidents are from the core zone. One can only imagine what must be happening in the buffer and territorial forests. The department needs to pull up its socks and get down to curbing this practice by prompt actions and punishments. We only hear cases involving big cats; there must be hundreds of herbivores becoming victims too." A tigress in the Tipeshwar wildlife sanctuary roamed with the snare for almost two years and finally succumbed last month, he added.