Tigress survives years with snare knotted around stomach, raises healthy cubs

PILIBHIT: A tigress whose lower back was cinched for years by a metallic snare - an injury so severe it had reshaped her into a silhouette almost cheetah-like - continued not only to survive but to give birth to healthy cubs , a rare feat observed recently in the Surai forest range of Terai East forest division. First sighted with the embedded snare in 2022, and rediscovered in Dec 2023, the tigress stunned forest officials who, as they prepared to dart her for rescue, witnessed her carrying a cub gently in her mouth - a moment that suspended the operation and reframed the story they thought they were about to tell.

From the beginning, her case defied expectation. The metallic loop had lodged itself deep in her lumbosacral region, an area crucial for mobility and balance. Yet, despite the physical restrictions - and the internal damage that experts later suspected - she moved through her habitat with enough stealth and strength to hunt, mate, conceive, and rear a litter. Drone surveillance launched after the interrupted rescue attempt confirmed what seemed almost improbable: four cubs, nursed and nurtured, thriving in her care.

Today, three of those cubs, now around sixteen months old, roam the forest with their mother, who continues to hunt and provide for them with a tenacity that belies the injury written into her body. To the team observing her, and to the wider circle of wildlife biologists, her survival - and that of her cubs - has become a living case study in endurance, adaptation, and the hidden margins of possibility in the wild.

At the Wildlife Institute of India, where a detailed plan for her future is under discussion, Dr Parag Nigam told TOI that the need to rescue the tigress remained urgent. "The metallic snare poses serious physical and spinal risks that could worsen with time," he said, adding that her images would be sent to WII's tiger cell to cross-reference her history with national tiger databases.

Veterinary experts studying her case noted the narrow anatomical escape that had allowed her to survive and reproduce. Dr R K Singh, former veterinary head of Kanpur zoo, explained that the snare's position likely spared her kidneys and ovaries, trapping mostly the intestinal loops instead.