BAREILLY
: The forest department has confirmed the presence of fresh pugmarks of a tiger in and around the defunct Synthetic and
Chemical Limited
company, commonly known as rubber factory here. The factory is nearly 18 km from the city. Divisional forest officer (DFO) has written to seniors seeking permission to catch or tranquilize the tiger.
The forest officials had found tiger pugmarks in Agras village of
Meerganj
in the last week of February but had then claimed that the animal was on its way back to
Pilibhit
tiger reserve.
Anil Kumar Mishra
, forest range officer, Meerganj, said, “Pugmarks found on the campus and around the rubber factory are those of a tiger. Villagers who work near a brick kiln had claimed spotting a tiger there. It is an ideal spot for a stray tiger due to presence of trees, river and prey like nilgai. The distance from Agras village to the current spot is only 2 km via river. The area at Agras village was suitable for the big cat but after villagers harvested the sugarcane and cleared the field, it might have shifted to the secluded factory.’’
However, the forest team combing the area is yet to spot a tiger. DFO Bharat Lal, who recently inspected the area, said, “Following the discovery of fresh pugmarks, I wrote to conservator PP Singh for seeking permission to either catch or tranquilize the animal. He will forward the letter to principal chief conservator of forest for necessary permission. I am awaiting a reply from my seniors.’’
According to forest officials, Bareilly has only social forestry and hence, it has no wild animal here. TOI had earlier reported that whenever any killing takes place in Pilibhit, it creates panic in neighbouring Bareilly with people taking to social media and flooding it with fake images or videos of big cats being spotted here. “In the past few years, we have never received a genuine complaint about the sighting of a tiger as forest teams did not confirm presence of big cats in Bareilly. However, this time, we have found pugmarks,” Lal had said earlier.