On Sunday evening, a tiger was found dead soon after it had eaten a sambar deer. The carcass was found in the Parsons Valley reservoir in the Nilgiris district. A section of the Tamil media has reported that the tiger had died after it had consumed “sambhar rice”.
Tiger dies off eating a deer from a breed called Sambar.
Tamil media reports “Tiger dies after eating Sambhar Rice”! ???
சாம்பார் என்ற மான் இனத்தை சாப்பிட்ட புலியையே சாம்பார் சாதம் சாப்பிட்ட மாதிரி வடிவம் கொடுத்தல்! pic.twitter.com/sugBbnCRHl
— SG Suryah (@SuryahSG) July 18, 2019
According to a report, by a Tamil website, the tiger was hungry for a long time and was forced to go towards the nearby village in search of food. The tiger had searched for food in a garbage dump. According to the report, it had consumed “sambhar rice” along with a few pieces of plastic. Several reports claim that this was found after a post mortem.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBjNGlvZcXk]
Here are some of the websites that had a similar headline.
However, the tiger had died after eating a sambar deer and not “sambhar rice”. One of the Tamil websites, Dinamani, has already removed its report from the website.
As reported by Indian Express, the carcass of the six-year-old tiger was found 100 metres away from the backwater of the Parsons Valley Reservoir by anti-poaching watchers. The tiger had vomited after quenching its thirst, after which it had died. Initially, it was suspected that the tiger could have been poisoned.
However, post mortem revealed that the stomach was full of tapeworms along with undigested sambar deer meat. It also had a broken piece of shaving blade along with internal bleeding in the stomach.
Officials say that either the tapeworm infestation could have choked the passage of food inside the alimentary canal leading to its death. It is also possible that the blade could have made the digestion complicated.
Although the Nilgiris district is plastic-free, it’s common for deers and bisons to rummage through garbage dumps in the Ooty town. The blade is suspected to have entered the tiger after the dear had consumed it.