'Big cat' attacks 3 in Chanho village

RANCHI: Three days after a big cat strayed into a village and attacked three people in Chanho, forest and wildlife officials remain divided about its identity owing to a lack of concrete evidence. Officials on Monday said they were unsure as it returned to its habitat after wreaking havoc on Sunday.
"Evidence gathered is inconclusive without further scientific tests," DK Srivastava, the principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) said on Monday."But the carnivore definitely belonged to the big cat family," he added.
The tiger, reportedly from the Palamu Tiger Reserve in Betla, strayed into the village in the wee hours of Saturday morning and injured three villagers, before retreating to its habitat on Sunday.
While villagers claim it to be a tiger, wildlife officials have opted for a detailed examination as they think it was a leopard. Jharkhand chief wildlife warden, BC Nigam said the incident was surprising as the area has not reported tiger attacks in the past. They have however documented leopard attacks. "We will base our investigation on witness accounts and identification of pug marks closely. But having said that pug marks of a tiger and leopard are very similar.
We will depend on DNA reports extracted from its scat," he added. The injured villagers - Mobin Ansari, Paras Sahu and Vivekanand Tiwary - claimed to have seen a tiger. "It was hiding behind the bushes. We clearly saw it; it definitely was an adult tiger," said Tiwary. The injured have been recuperating at RIMS since Monday.
The officials believe that the kind of injuries sustained by victims suggests the predator was old. A tiger generally operates under a 10km territory and there are around seven of them in Palamu Tiger Reserve.
With forest cover fast receding owing to mining and habitat destruction, wildlife officials have warned about a rise in such incidents. While experts say tigers do not harm unless provoked, such encounters will reduce the already dwindling tiger population.