A tiger was found dead in the buffer zone of the Bandhavgarh reserve in Madhya Pradesh, which took the number of tiger fatalities reported in the state to three within a week, an official said on Saturday.
The decomposed carcass of the tiger was found near a drain in the buffer area on Friday, Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve's field director Vincent Raheem told PTI over phone.
"As the carcass was highly decomposed, the tiger's tongue and an internal organ were sent for testing to ascertain the cause of the death. The report is awaited," Raheem added.
The carcass has been disposed of as per the guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), he said.
Last Saturday (May 8), a tiger was found dead in Kanha Tiger Reserve of the state, officials said.
A day before that, a dead sub-adult tiger (aged between 18 and 24 months) was found floating in a canal of an inter-state water project in Balaghat's Waraseoni tehsil, they added.
Madhya Pradesh is home to a number of tiger reserves, including Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Satpura and Panna. The central Indian state had regained the top slot in the 2018 census with a population of 526 tigers.
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