Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh's bad run with the royal cat continues. A tiger cub was found dead in Balaghat district on Friday, taking the toll of mysterious tiger deaths in the state this year to seven and 37 since January 2016.The carcass was found near a waterbody in Katangi forest in the Kanha-Pench corridor. The cub died of parasitic infections, some forest officials said, while others feel it starved to death after separation from its mother."Its vital organs were infected by roundworms, some of them were 5 inches long," said Ashok Kumar, DFO Balaghat. "Heavy infestation of roundworms caused diarrhoea, loss of appetite, vomiting, emaciation and eventually death," said the officer.Forest officers are worried about the possibility of an infection because there are more than 20 tigers in the region. "We have identified sites and installed camera traps near waterbodies for opportunistic survey," said the DFO. Officials are now trying to locate its mother and other cubs.Considering the tiger population, Balaghat district collector recently sent a proposal for starting tiger safaris in Longur and Sonewali areas of the Maoist-infested district. There are also plans to declare Balaghat a 'Tiger district'.Balaghat is one of the non-protected areas in Kanha-Pench corridor where density of tigers and prey is comparatively high. Balaghat is one of the World Wildlife Fund - India TX2 (Tigers x 2) sites, which aims at doubling the number of tigers in the wild by 2020.The killing of three tigers and an equal number of leopards for 'black magic' in and around Balaghat in the past few months has come as a jolt to the joint campaign of WWF-I and state forest department to raise the big cat population. WWF has installed cameras in southern Balaghat area and captured movements of more than 12 tigers in the past few months. However, they have not been able to enter the district's northern region following threats from Maoists of Tanda-Malajkhand Dalam, who use it as a transit link to enter neighbouring states in the Red Corridor.

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