2 min readBhopalMay 5, 2026 09:13 PM IST
A two-year-old male tiger, rescued barely a week ago and declared fit, was found dead inside the Panna Tiger Reserve on Tuesday, raising the tiger death toll in Madhya Pradesh this year to 28.
The animal had been captured on April 26 from Tara village in the Amanganj buffer range after it strayed close to human habitation.
Field Director Brijendra Srivastava said, “This is an unfortunate incident. There were complaints that the tiger was straying into human habitations in Tara village and had also entered a home.”
According to forest officials, veterinarians had assessed the tiger as healthy before releasing it back into the reserve with a radio collar — part of a system meant to enable round-the-clock tracking. Despite this, the carcass was discovered near a nullah in the Rampura beat.
Field Director Srivastava said the body was found intact, with no immediate signs of poaching or external injury visible at the site. Samples have been collected and sent for postmortem examination, with authorities maintaining that only the postmortem report would establish the cause of death.
Officials insisted that all protocols were followed and that evidence from the site had been secured. Yet, it remains unclear how a radio-collared tiger, declared healthy and tracked in real time, died within days without triggering an immediate response.
