Elderly eaten by tigers, officials suspect compensation scam?

Pilibhit Tiger Reserve authorities suspect local families are using the elderly in the family as tiger prey Locals, however, say family elders were willing participants in the whole affair They say poverty is the reason for this

In 2010 the compensation for victims and kin of those killed in animal attacks had been raised from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. Now forest officials who man the villages and green belt in the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR) are suspecting a trend to be forming. It involves the locals sending elders of their family to become animal (tiger) prey in the hope of receiving compensation.

According to a report in the Times of India, the officials say these villagers then relocate the body to fields to claim it had been an animal attack and take compensation from the government. Man-animal conflicts have increased but this incident only highlights a gruesome fact how old people are being neglected by their own children.

Apparently if they die in the permits of the reserve there is no compensation and of late it has been observed the number of tiger attacks in the belt has grown rapidly. Over seven deaths have already been reported since February this year .

Kalim Athar of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau of investigation is supposed to have deduced this pattern and he mentioned this to the newspaper.

Shockingly, the locals have admitted to doing this and claim their family elders were sacrificing themselves to keep the family from poverty.

It has to be a heart rending situation where children are forced to send their own parents as bait for tigers so that they can survive. While one might argue they are doing it because they are poor, but such a violent death in the name of money!