Tigresses from the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) have been straying out to hone the preying skill of their cubs. The little ones try their teeth and claws on the livestock in the villages that dot the fringes of the famed sanctuary in Assam. The jumbos too have been going on rampages in nearby localities.

Their human neighbours are naturally not amused. They have been giving vent to their ire by poisoning tiger cubs and thrashing the forest guards. A tiger cub recently died, while another is recuperating in a veterinary hospital. The siblings were apparently poisoned by local villagers. A forest ranger of KNP was recently roughed up by locals after a herd of wild elephants raided a nearby village and trampled a woman to death. The villagers thrashed another guard and kept him tied to a tree for several hours.

KNP’s director S N Buragohain said some of the sanctuary’s big cats gave birth to cubs five to eight months back. The mothers are now taking the young cubs out on prowl to train them to hunt for food.

“KNP’s buffalos or deer are too big for the little ‘big cats’. So the mothers stray out with their litter and look for smaller kills in the villages,” Buragohain said. The tigresses and their cubs prey on the cattle much to the chagrin of the villagers.

A tiger cub was recently found critically ill at the adjoining Hathikuli Tea Estate and was taken to KNP’s Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. “The mother and the cubs apparently killed the buffalo-calf and left it half-eaten. The villagers laced it with pesticide before the cubs returned to finish it,” Divisional Forest Officer, Bankim Sharma, said.

The forest officials sent the dead cub’s viscera and samples of the buffalo’s cadaver for forensic tests. Complaints have been lodged in the local police station against the tea-estate’s proprietor, the owner of the buffalo-calf and the villagers who attacked the forest ranger and the guard.

KNP’s success in saving the one-horned rhinos from extinction earned it global accolade but its fame questioned, with over 21 rhinos falling to the bullets.