A tiger nicknamed "Champaran´s man-eating" was killed by Indian police after killing at least nine people, during a major operation involving 200 people, some of whom were traveling on elephants, officials said Sunday. .
The animal sowed terror among residents around the Valmiki tiger reserve in Champaran, eastern India, and killed at least six people for a month, including a woman and her eight-year-old son, on Saturday.
Even before the two recent deaths, the authorities described the tiger - believed to be a three- or four-year-old male - as a "man-eating", meaning it could be wiped out.
Previous attempts to neutralize the danger to the animal have failed.
"Two teams entered the forest on the back of two elephants on Saturday afternoon, and a third waited at the point where we thought the tiger would come out, and we shot (...) to kill him there," local police chief Kiran Kumar told AFP.
Kumar said that while the villagers were striking tin containers, the team of eight snipers and about 200 members of the forestry department took nearly six hours to complete the operation.
Environmental attribute these cases to the rapid expansion of human settlements around forests and major wildlife routes, such as the habitats of elephants and tigers, which are a source of increased inclusion between humans and animals in some parts of India.
About 225 people died in tiger attacks between 2014 and 2019 in India, according to government data.
These statistics revealed that more than 200 tigers were killed by illegal poachers or by electrocution between 2012 and 2018.
India has about 70% of the world´s tigers, with 2,967 tigers in the country in 2018.
Man-eating tiger killed in India after killing nine people
