Forest watcher B. Suresh, 26, was among tiger victims

(Beth Clifton photo)

B. Suresh, 26, a forest watcher at the Balle-Moorkal camp west of Nagarahole National Park, India, was on the morning of November 30, 2013 the third of five people killed by tigers in or near the intersection of Nagarahole and the Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

Suresh was killed 48 hours after a farmer and an indigenous herder were killed in separate incidents about 20 miles away. Another farmer was killed three days later. His death, and those of the first two victims, were attributed to a tiger who was tranquilized and netted on December 4, 2013.

Transferred to the Mysore Zoo, the tiger was found to have been starving because of the effects of having a mouthful of porcupine quills.

Beth & Merritt Clifton.
(Geoff Geiger photo)

The tiger who attacked Suresh remained officially unidentified, but another tiger killed a farmer on December 27, 2013, and was captured and transferred to Bannerghatta National Park on December 31, 2013.

A third “maneater” tiger was shot on January 23, 2014 near Kappachi village in Udhagamandalam, after killing two women and a man in three weeks. That tiger was found to have a jaw injury that would have interfered with hunting normal tiger prey.

A fourth “maneater” at the end of February 2014 had killed 11 people in seven weeks, yet remained at large near Maniawala, Uttarakhand.