14 Nov 2019



BENGALURU: Big cats attacking and feeding on humans won’t be called man-eaters any more. The revised standard operating procedure drawn up by National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for dealing with big cats straying into human-dominated landscapes has replaced the term ‘man-eater’ with ‘dangerous to human life’.

The new guidelines also ban non-departmental individuals, like private sharpshooters, from participating in operations to eliminate/tranquillise or capture tigers in conflict. The development comes in the wake of the controversy over death of tigress Avni in Maharashtra last year.

Environmentalists and veterinarians hailed removal of the word ‘man-eater’, which they said was a cruel description. However, the new term is quite broad and hasn’t been defined well, they felt, pointing out there are chances that tigers which haven’t killed humans may end up getting the ‘dangerous to human life’ tag and eventually be captured or killed.

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