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हिन्दी 
In the second such close encounter the elusive tiger in Rehmankheda killed and ate a portion of the bait kept to lure the canny cat.
The incident took place near the Central Institute of Sub-Tropical Horticulture (CISH) campus where a bait was placed in an open area. At one instance the bait was alive and standing and in the next, it was down and dead with a portion of its body taken by the tiger – all while the tranqualising teams stood nearby waiting for an opportunity for a shot at the wild cat.
Meanwhile, officials said that things are moving completely to plan to keep the tiger away from human habitat and bring it near the bait they are purposely placing. “We suppose it (tiger) ate 2 or 3 kgs of meat and left swiftly sensing activity nearby as our team was positioning to hit the dart. But we could not tranqualise it today,” said Sitanshu Pandey, divisional forest officer, Awadh Range.
He said, “The tiger came to eat the bait and now we are monitoring the carcass of the bait as eating only two or three kg meat means the tiger is still hungry and will return, as it did on December 28, 2024.”
In December too, the tiger had killed the bait and had returned the next morning to eat the leftovers. A similar episode took place on Monday, after a gap of nine days. The area where the tiger is roaming, a 10-km radius, has been divided into three zones where first is the campus of CISH, second is Meethenagar village and surrounding area, and the third zone is Ulaapur village that falls near the railway track.
The killing of the bait took place under a strategy where the net was placed 900 m around the bait and elephants Sulochana and Dyna, brought from Dudhwa National Park, combed the various zones following the pugmarks. After patrolling by elephants and tranqualising teams deployed, the tiger had killed the bait.
“After the carcass of the bait was spotted, we surrounded the entire area of about 5-6 km where the bait was killed,” said Pandey.
During the day principal chief conservator of forest and wildlife warden Anuradha Vemuri also visited Rehmankheda, and reviewed the efforts and shared tips on speeding up the rescue operation for the tiger.
