Guwahati, November 11 2010: Officials of the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) recovered carcasses of two male tigers.

According to the KNP officials, one carcass was found in Kohora range and the other in Bagori range.

Officials heaved a sigh of relief when they found the body parts of both animals intact.

But what bugged them were marks of injury inflicted by other animals.

The one at Bagori, they deduced, was gored by a wild buffalo it presumably had preyed on.

The other one, they suspected, was killed by another tiger over a territorial dispute.

DD Gogoi who is the divisional forest officer (DFO) of Kaziranga said, "Though the carcass found in Kohora range was decomposed, it was in the 5-7 age group and could have been a victim of feline territorial control" .

Buffalo-kill cases � Kaziranga has 80 per cent of the world's Asiatic water buffalos � are also on the rise.

This, officials said, could be the outcome of a high concentration of tigers in the 860 sq km park sited 300 km east of Guwahati.

Amid gloom for the big cat across India, KNP had provided a glimmer of hope in April this year with the Ministry of Environment and Forest announcing the presence of 32 tigers per 100 sq km in Kaziranga.

The euphoria was cut short when wildlife activists pointed out that the 'healthy tiger population' was the outcome of drastic habitat destruction around Kaziranga.

"The figure is unbelievable, and even if we take it to be true, it augurs doom for the tiger," said Soumyadeep Dutta of green group Nature's Beckon.

Though poachers targeting one-horned rhinos spared the tiger during the past three years, villagers on Kaziranga's periphery have been poisoning the striped cat straying out to kill domesticated cattle.

In 2008, two tigers were poisoned.

It is worth noting that as per official records, nine tigers died naturally in Kaziranga that year, most of them to territorial fights.

Prior to the discovery of the two carcasses on Thursday, four tigers had died of similar natural causes this year.

Tigers are solitary animals, unlike the lions.

Tigers stay together for a brief mating period.

Each tiger 'controls' its own territory and hates intrusion by another tiger.

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