Tiger crosses national highway, jumps over crash barrier, video goes viral

Watch the video here:

When road crosses the forest, #tiger need to be extra cautious while crossing it. Video of tiger crossing National Highway near Nagpur. pic.twitter.com/fjW9YamX2a

— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) July 9, 2019

The video recorded by commuters on the highway quickly went viral online and started a serious discussion about the mitigation measures taken by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in the region.

We are encroaching their habitat like never before. We are jeopardising their lives. Seems the tiger corridor elevated planned in the area is ineffectual #savethetiger @NTCAtiger

— Binoti (@binotiamam) July 10, 2019

This is sad!! We have encroached forest lands to the extent that they can’t even live in peace in their own places !!

— moringa fleur (@moringafleur) July 10, 2019

Hope the @MORTHIndia take steps to stop road construction in national parks, reserved forests and if unavoidable, incorporate measures to reduce animal deaths like building wildlife crossings. https://t.co/5pvrZ58IUt

— Unnikrishnan R (@karmakomik) July 9, 2019

Instead of expecting tigers to be cautious. Isn’t it logical that authorities must be cautious while planning roads and mitigation measures?

— National Tiger ConVersation Authority (NTCA) (@NTCAtiger) July 9, 2019

Another invasion by humans.Soon there will be no tigers or elephants due to animal/human conflicts.And people,don’t forget the forest and tigers were there well before the humans came along to destroy their habitat.

— veronica Holland (@vsholland8) July 9, 2019

This is terribly sad to see that man has completely disregarded that they have built a major road with barriers through a tiger corridor. Just total lunacy!!!

— Theresia J. Krotzky (@theresjenn) July 9, 2019

The entire stretch should be elevated. The traffic on the roads is only going to increase.

— om ojha (@ojha_op) July 9, 2019

After its proposal in 2008 for four-laning of NH7 between Seoni (Madhya Pradesh) and Nagpur (Maharashtra) faced scrutiny, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) told a Supreme Court panel that it was ready to build a 9.3-km flyover over the Pench tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh so that wildlife movements are not disturbed.

However, in 2014, NHAI said it could afford only a 1-km flyover. By 2015, the plan had been further downsized to building just a few ecoducts (landscaping above the carriageway for wildlife movement) of unspecified length.