Forest Department monitoring tiger seen in village near Ooty town

The animal is currently in the Udhagai north range of the Nilgiris Forest Division

The Forest Department in the Nilgiris has fixed camera traps and is monitoring the movement of a tiger just a few kilometres outside Udhagamandalam town.

Videos of the tiger, hunting Sambar deer, were shared on mobile messaging applications over the last week by local residents who sighted the animal. The animal is said to have been seen in the area for the last two months and is not believed to have had problematic interactions with humans so far. Forest Department officials said the buffer zone of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) was very close to the village where the tiger was spotted, and that the tiger could have made its way up the Kalhatti slopes into the present habitat.