Indian authorities are chasing after another deadly attack a tiger that has killed eight people in two years, officials learned on Wednesday.
The animal killed its latest victim on Monday evening, tearing apart an elderly villager who had gone to search for firewood in the Khambada area about 660 kilometers from Mumbai.
“We tried to capture the tiger using tranquilizer darts, but without any success,” NR Praveen, a forest management official in Maharashtra state, told AFP.
This type of attack is increasing in India, a country of 1.3 billion inhabitants where the human presence is encroaching more and more on the habitat areas of tigers.
In June, a tiger was accused of killing three people and, deemed “too dangerous” to be let loose, was sent to a zoo in Madhya Pradesh (center).
Some 225 people were killed in tiger attacks between 2014 and 2019, according to government data.
For their part, animals also suffer violence from humans. More than 200 tigers were killed by poachers or electrocution between 2012 and 2018 in India, these data show.
India is home to around 70% of the world’s tiger population. According to the government, the number of tigers in the country rebounded to 2,967 in 2018 after dropping to 1,411 in 2006.