By Abinash Chaudhary
Dhangadi, Aug.10: Entry to the Masuria forest area of ​​Kailali district has been prohibited after a tigress was sighted, along with her two cubs.
The Community Forest Coordinating Committee, Masuria, has enacted the ban in an effort to avert human-tiger conflict. People living in the surrounding areas enter the forest mostly to pick fiddlehead ferns and other plants during their seasons.
Om Prakash Sapkota, Chairman of the Committee, confirming to the ban, said that people have been stopped from entering the forest for the past three or four days after a tigress with her cubs appeared on the east-west highway.
It is believed that some tigers have been roaming in the community forest north and south of the East-West Mahendra Highway and the national forest in the middle.
The Committee has informed that forest men, visitors and locals have seen the tigers on the Masuria-Hasulia road on Sunday morning. According to Sapkota, the tigress might have given birth to the cubs in the same area. “Even though the tigers have been sighted here for a month now, they have been around for one and a half to two months,” he said. 
A Bengal tiger had also roamed the area last February and even killed a woman. 
According to the Division Forest Office, the man-eating tiger went to Bardiya National Park shortly after killing the woman.
Chief of the Office, Ram Chandra Kandel, said that it was necessary to be vigilant about the situation as a tigress with her babies can be aggressive towards passerby.  
Conservationist Bijay Raj Shrestha said that the forest was considered suitable for raising their cubs. “There are sufficient food species and a good environment where tigers can protect their young ones there,” he said. 
Male tigers tend to kill the young ones, so female tigers frequently reach the forest areas to protect their cubs from them.