A tiger that officials say killed 13 people was shot dead in central India over the weekend, igniting a firestorm of criticism from politicians and animal rights activists who said the killing was unnecessary.
The operation to find the female tiger, called T1 by authorities and Avni by animal rights advocates, had gone on for months but had intensified after the tiger claimed its latest victim in August. Since then, forest officials doubled their efforts to find it, with patrols, a paraglider, thermal drones, sniffer dogs and even cologne.
But late on Friday evening, locals in the west-central Indian state of Maharashtra tipped off hunters that the tiger had been seen near a road.