Sariska, Rajasthan:
India's Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh was at the Ground Zero of country's Tiger Crisis. After reaching Sariska, Jairam Ramesh headed straight for the exact spot where ST1, the first tiger relocated from Ranthambore, was found dead.
Two villages are just a kilometer away but strangely none of their 600 residents reported seeing the tiger spotted most frequently in the park in the past two years.
"There's no conclusive or definitive proof but poisoning seems to have been the main cause. But really I think the main cause is also the complete collapse of governance and administration in Sariska," said Jairam Ramesh, Environment and Forests Minister.
ST1 had killed several domestic animals in recent months and sources say that may have instigated villagers to poison it. In the past five years only one of the 28 villages in the park has been shifted out - a sign of the lack of trust between villagers and forest officials. But now after a huge grant from the Centre, the Rajasthan government says relocating villagers will be their top priority.
"We will greatly increase our dialogue with villagers to make them shift out. We will give as much importance to their problems as we do for our tigers," said RN Mehrotra, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Rajasthan.
All tigers in Sariska are fitted with radio collars but shockingly ST1 had not been tracked since 30th October. The government has suspended two senior officials and plans to transfer a dozen others but 50 posts of forest guards, critical to track tigers, still remain vacant.
With a tiger regarded as the 'Pride of Sariska ' poisoned, everyone here is shaken. While heads have begun to roll for negligence, the big question is why does it need a huge crisis for the government to wake up.