New Delhi: All that was left of the tiger were scattered remains – head, partially exposed skull and limbs, with only the paws still intact. The cause of death, officials suspect, was a fatal fight between two big cats and a suspected act of cannibalism. But what exactly is this case of cannibal act in Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh?
Forest officials found the remains on Friday evening at Mundi-Dadar area in the reserve’s core area in Mandla district during patrolling. Another tiger had been spotted in the area, leading the forest department to conclude that it might have killed the tiger. With the tiger’s claws and teeth intact –parts that have great value in the black market – the department safely concluded that it wasn’t a case of poaching.
But the scarce remains made the immediate identification of the big cat’s gender and age difficult. Its viscera has been sent for analysis and identification is also being attempted via facial markings. “Identification is very difficult, but we believe the body is that of a tigress who hadn’t yet reached maturity,” said deputy director, Anjana Tirki.
The ‘tiger-eats-tiger’ theory stems from the presence of a male tiger in the area and “circumstantial evidence that points to the corpse having been dragged for about 700 meters,” said officials. But experts argued that this isn’t conclusive. Raghu Chandawat, conservation biologist, said that while instances of tiger cannibalism have been recorded in the scientific interpretation, concluding the exact cause of death in this case needs more evidence.
“No one saw the fight. No one saw the tiger feeding on the carcass. Usually, fights for territory are common between females and females or males and males. After the fight, both tigers go somewhere and hide, recuperating from their injuries while the tiger that lost could die.”
He added that scavengers, ranging from hyenas to vultures, could then eat the corpse – a possibility the forest department isn’t ruling out. “We can’t rule out scavengers eating the animal. There isn’t any camera trap images of the kill,” Tirki said.
In most large carnivores, aggression and territoriality are the key drivers of social interactions, and killings over territory aren’t uncommon. Juveniles, such as the tigress that died in Kanha, in particular, are vulnerable. For male tigers, infanticide – where juveniles are killed by an immigrating male – is a reproductive strategy aimed at bringing the mother to come into oestrus (a period of sexual receptivity and fertility).
A 2014 study by the Wildlife Institute of India, which looked at the impact an immigrating male had in Ranthambore from 2008 to 2010, said that in such a situation, females with cubs have only two ways of saving their cubs: “Move to an alternative location outside the new male’s territory” or “enhance chances” of injuries or deaths during repeated attempts to defend cubs.
The study found that while one mother died after a fatal fight with the male, another moved outside her established range to an area with less prey, making it harder to fend for her cubs. Not just tigers, such selective killing of cubs to increase chances of mating has been documented in lions, brown bears and jaguars as well.
Cannibalism might be a taboo among humans, but is ubiquitous in the natural world. As early as 1906, British soldier LB Montresor published an anecdotal note in the Journal of Bombay Natural History Society about cases of cannibalism in leopards and tigers in India, including an instance of him finding a tiger scat “composed of (another) tiger’s hair” and a tiger claw.
In 1984, an independent researcher PC Kotwal also recorded the “incidences of intraspecific fights and cannibalism among tigers in Kanha National Park”.
A forest department official at Kanha explained, “In case of a tiger killing another tiger over territory or sexual selection, the act is not driven by hunger. The motivation to kill is different but it is still a predator, so it might eat part of the kill. You can’t view the tiger’s behaviour from a human lens that views cannibalism a certain way.”
The problem, the official explained, is that forests, especially dry forests like those in Madhya Pradesh, have far exceeded their carrying capacity in terms of the number of tigers it can hold.
In 2010, scientists from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, argued that the survival of the tiger “also depends on proper management of potential tiger habitats across the country” and warned against loss of “corridors and dispersing grounds” that would “affect the animals trapped in tiger reserves leading to aggravated cannibalism and inbreeding depression”.
Prerna Panwar, Wildlife Trust of India, added, “The tiger population reaching the carrying capacity of the forest is happening in some parts of India. That is what drives human-animal conflict as well.”
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