Call of the wild

The violent death of a tiger within an area deemed safe raises doubts about wildlife safety.

Two news pieces about big cats drew the readers’ attention this week—the first was the astounding news about a snow leopard captured successfully by security and forest officials in Morang, and the second was the depressing development of a striped tigress being killed in a trap laid by poachers in Kailali. Officials are investigating how the snow leopard landed in the plains of Jhapa while its natural habitat is the high mountains, and one angle they will be looking at is whether the “ghost of the mountains” had escaped the net of poachers. The death of the tigress, though, seems to be a clear case of poaching, as it was found in a snare, with multiple injuries, in the Karnali bio-corridor at Amarawati Community Forest in Janaki Rural Municipality-9.