Elusive tiger kills 10th person in India

A wild Bengal tiger prowling near villages in northern India killed its 10th person in six weeks on Sunday, a day after eluding a trap set by hunters with a live calf as bait.

The female tiger is believed to have strayed from Jim Corbett National Park, India's oldest national park, which was established in 1936 to provide endangered Bengal tigers with safe territory. Some 200 tigers live in the park, but locals say this is the first time they can remember one of them attacking villagers.

The tiger's latest victim was a 50-year-old man who was collecting firewood Sunday night in the forest outside Kalgarh village in Uttarakhand state, according to Saket Badola, deputy director of the national park.

The animal ate parts of the man's leg and abdomen before being scared away by villagers waving shovels and metal rods.

Hunters had almost nabbed the tiger a day earlier with a bovine calf.

"On Saturday night the tigress almost fell in trap and was close to the calf," Badola said. "But she did not attack the bait and left silently."

Reports that a killer tiger was on the loose began circulating on Dec. 29, when a 65-year-old man was mauled in Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh state, across the border from Uttarakhand. 

Since then, thousands of terrified villagers have been told to watch out for the animal and to avoid the forests. The tiger has been on the prowl across an area spanning some 80 miles.

"The animal has started attacking humans because it is not getting its natural prey," said Rupek De, chief wildlife warden of Uttar Pradesh. "The tigress must be tired because it is not getting adequate rest."

He said the hunters hired to kill the animal were having trouble tracking it in dense forests. The team was also understaffed; only three of the six hunters hired for the job showed up for work, De said.

De tapped wildlife officials in Uttarakhand for assistance, saying there seemed to be lack of coordination.

On Sunday, angry villagers seized a national forestry office, demanding protection and compensation for the families of the dead.

"We can understand the predicament of the villagers," Badola said. "The villagers do not have toilets in their homes. They go out in the open or forest areas to answer nature's call. In this scenario it is difficult to give protection to each and every villager. We have advised them to move in groups."

Anand Saini, whose brother Devendra was the tiger's victim on Jan. 26, said everyone was living in fear.

"The children in the village are now being asked not to venture too far out, particularly early in the morning or after sunset. Even the farmers who used to sleep in the fields to prevent animals like deer from destroying their crops are staying home at night," he told AFP from his home in Bijnor district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

India's wild tigers are considered endangered because of rampant poaching and shrinking habitat as India undergoes breakneck development to accommodate the staggering growth of its 1.2 billion people.

India today has more than half of the 3,200 tigers estimated to be left in the wild. Despite dozens of tiger reserves across the country, however, the numbers have sunk from an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 in the 1990s, when the big cats' habitat was twice as large. 

Wire services