Fact Check
As conservationists eagerly await results of the national tiger census conducted a few months ago, a photo of an adult royal Bengal tiger lying in the middle of a highway after it was hit by a speeding vehicle is being shared on social media.
Sharing the photo of the tiger lying flat in the highway - with vehicles and policemen appearing in the background - the post claims that the photo shows a tiger killed in Banke National Park in western Nepal.
It implies that it is a recent photo of yet another tiger killed along East West Highway - which passes through five national parks where tigers are found – Parsa, Chitwan, Banke, Bardia and Shukla Phanta.
The tweet, with the dead tiger’s photo appearing below, reads: “Photo speaks. Location: Banke National Park.” And it credits the photo to BNP, acronym for Banke National Park. The tweet is attracting a lot of attention - as it is being retweeted multiple times.
Photo speaks.
— ?Sonam Tashi Lama? (@SonamTaC) July 26, 2022
Location: Banke National Park Nepal. Photo: BNP pic.twitter.com/S8gUtvlxDU
Fact-check
NepalMinute fact-checked the claim.
First we did a google reverse image search of the photo and found out that a strikingly similar photo was clicked on January 2, 2021 by journalist Upendra Lamichhane for Nagarik News Network.
He captured the image at Pathlaiya-Hetauda section of the highway which is officially inside Parsa National Park - a prime tiger habitat.
Subsequently, the photo was published by Nagarik and Republica newspapers. You can read one of the articles here - and it clearly shows the photo, besides telling the story surrounding the accident.
Besides Lamichhane, other journalists too had captured the tiger killed on the highway near Pathlaiya.
And just yesterday, on Monday, July 25, a similar photo - also taken around the same time on January 2, 2021 - was used by Naya Patrika Daily newspaper to tell a story of growing roadkill involving wildlife in Banke National Park.
You can read the story here.
Sonam Tashi Lama, a wildlife conservationist also associated with Red Panda Network, appears to have tweeted the same photo used by Naya Patrika Daily to substantiate his claim.
The photo appears to have been taken seconds before or after Lamichhane clicked the popular photo.
Conclusion
The claim, based on an old photo of a tiger killed in an entirely different location, has the potential to mislead social media users.
The photo is circulating days before the government of Nepal makes public results of a nation-wide tiger census conducted in and around the five key tiger habitats in southern Nepal.
There, tiger population stood at 235 as per 2018 census.
As the tiger population increases, incidents of tigers attacking humans and tigers getting killed in road accidents - as in the January 2, 2021 photo - have become common too.
You can read a story on roadkill involving tigers in national parks in southern Nepal here.
