Taking a serious note of a spate of tiger deaths in Madhya Pradesh, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has set up a panel that has launched a probe into the incidents.
A total of 18 big cats have died in the state since May 2015.
The two-member committee has already started their investigation and visited the Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) where deaths of seven big cats out of 18 were reported during last twelve months.
The panel comprises D Swain, Inspector General of Forest, NTCA, Nagpur and AR Choudhary, Assistant Director of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Jabalpur.
"We have already visited PTR between April 4 and April 6," Swain and Choudhary told PTI today.
A tigress and its two cubs were poisoned to death on March 28 in PTR, they said.
"We are thinking about visiting other tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh from where deaths of tigers had been reported," Swain said.
He said the panel will try to prepare a report as soon as possible so that action could be taken in time.
The latest death reported was that of an eight-month-old orphaned cub which died of septicaemia at Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR) earlier this month, according to officials.
The cub was brought to Kanha, a home for orphaned cubs, from PTR following the death of mother tigress. It had some injuries when it was brought from Pench which led to septicaemia.
