A tiger was killed in the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) in Bihar, with foresters citing evidence of a fight with another tiger over territory.

The forest department officials cremated it on Monday.

The tiger was found on Sunday evening in sector 55 of the Manguraha forest in the tiger reserve on Sunday evening after forest department trackers noticed a foul smell of decomposing and traced its source.

“The dead tiger was a seven-year-old male. The pugmarks and other evidence suggest that it had a fight with another male tiger, suffered severe injuries and died of them. This seems to be a case of territorial fight,” conservator of forests–cum–VTR director Nesamani K. told The Telegraph.

The carcass was sent for postmortem and cremated on Monday according to the standard operating procedures for such eventualities.

A similar incident occurred in 2020-21 here in which a tiger had also lost its life.

VTR-I divisional forest officer (DFO) Pradyumn Gaurav said that the place where the tiger carcass was found was along the Nepal border and there was a strong possibility that the animal had come from the neighbouring country.

“We are in touch with our Nepal counterparts on this issue. A large male tiger dominates Manguraha and other tigers avoid the area for their safety. This is why in all probability the dead tiger was a vagrant (who did not know about the dominance of the existing tiger here),” Gaurav told The Telegraph.

“Tigers stand on their hind legs and fight with each other with their forelegs. The deceased tiger suffered injuries to his face and upper chest. One of its eyes was damaged,” Gaurav added, indicating how the injuries appeared to be inflicted by the forelegs of another tiger.

The DFO said that the tigers must have fought around four or five days before the carcass was discovered. The injured tiger must have moved away and died a couple of days later. Its death was discovered only after its body started decomposing and started smelling foul.

The VTR, which is spread over 899sqkm, had been declared a tiger reserve in 1994. It has 54 tigers according to the latest count, and a host of other wildlife.

The reserve is contiguous to the Chitwan National Park in Nepal and Sohagibarwar wildlife sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh.