Team Blitz India
MUMBAI: A four-month-old female tiger cub was killed after being hit by a SE-Central Railway train at Kitali Mendha in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district. The incident reportedly took place early morning as the train was en route from Chandrapur to Gondia.
Since January this year, Maharashtra has recorded nearly 35 tiger deaths, which is the highest number in the recent past, according to the data provided by the state wildlife headquarters in Nagpur. Last year, 28 tigers died in Maharashtra.
Railway line workers, conducting their routine tasks, discovered the carcass of the young tiger beside the tracks. Preliminary examinations indicate that the cub succumbed to injuries from a collision with the train, possibly while attempting to cross the railway line. A postmortem examination was also conducted on-site by a team of veterinary doctors from the Transit Treatment Centre (TTC) in Chandrapur.
The incident adds to the concerning trend of wildlife fatalities resulting from train collisions. Advocates for wildlife conservation have been urging the railway administration to develop comprehensive plans to prevent such accidents and safeguard the lives of wild animals.
Earlier, in a similar incident, a mutilated body of a sub-adult male tiger was found on the railway track in the Chunala forest beat of the Rajura range in Chandrapur district in October last year.
The accident took place on the Kagaznagar-Rajura-Chandrapur railway stretch under the SouthCentral Railway (SCR) zone, identified as one of the 17 sensitive stretches due to their passage through wildlife-rich forests.
The chief conservator of forests (CCF), Chandrapur Forest Circle, is coordinating with the railway officials to prevent such incidents in future.
