CHITWAN: A tiger entered in an open enclosure and killed one of its inhabitant wild water buffaloes in Padampur region of the Chitwan National Park (CNP), on Tuesday.

A monitoring team at the CNP found an adult female water buffalo dead in its enclosure after an attack by the tiger yesterday, acording to CNP Chief Protection Officer Ramchandra Kandel.

A team headed to the spot to carry out a postmortem today found the half-devoured carcass of the water buffalo at the distance of 60 metres into a bush, according to CNP's Assistant Conservation Officer Abhinaya Pathak. He said a tiger was also traced in the vicinity which was later chased away.

Pathak said, the preliminary investigation shows that the big cat had entered the enclosure through the point which was repaired in the aftermath of the destruction caused by the monsoon floods. He added that the Royal Bengal tiger had used the same opening to get out of the enclosure.

Of the total 15 water buffloes, a herd of 12 water buffaloes were translocated to the CNP from the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR) while three others were from the Central zoo which died after sometimes. Also, two female water buffaloes had died in the aftermath of flood disaster on September 2 and 10. Currently, there are only nine wild cattle left in the CNP.

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