One evening in February 2018, M Suraj and four other members were closely monitoring tiger movement through trap cameras from a room in Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve when bad news struck. A person from the village rushed to them with a newspaper that showed a tiger skin confiscated by the forest department authorities.
It only took moments for the team to recognise that it was the same male tiger who was missing for months.
“The tiger, Bhushan, was a fully grown adult of about 10 years. We were observing his movements for the past couple of years, so the strips of the wild cat, which act as identification marks, were known to us by heart. We assumed that he wandered to another tiger corridor… It was difficult to comprehend that he was hunted down,” says 30-year-old M Suraj, a conservationist working to protect the wildlife in Chhattisgarh.
Suraj and his team went into a state of shock with few members also shedding tears. “We had a special attachment with the animal,” he…