The authorities, though, would be caught off-guard if an epidemic did break out here, as they grope in the dark for solutions.There have been three casualties in the last two years officially, which includes one leopard last year which revealed TB after post-mortems had been conducted. These cases have only surfaced in Sariska, which is one of the main habitats of the precarious tiger population. Unofficially, they say the casualties are as many as 12 big cats in the last two years. As per the 1997 census, there are 24 tigers and 49 leopards in the park.

According to assistant director B M Sharma, Sariska National Park, all the casualties were of animals in the 3-4 year age group in the prime oftheir youth.

It is only after 1994, that a Medical Board with three members including a veterinary doctor, a representative of the Collector and police has been constituted. ``Earlier, the local vet used to conduct the post-mortem. He was often not in a position to judge (the problem) correctly,'' said Sharma. Now the viscera is sent to a forensic science laboratory after post-mortem for further investigation. Chances are that cases are only coming to light now. Local conditions in Sariska seem to be responsible for this disease being translocated. ``The sanctuary has the largest number of stray cattle in its premises those which are of low breeding, low-yielding variety kept for cow-dung, and are not looked after properly by the owners,'' said P K Sen, Director, Project Tiger.

There are 25 villages inside the sanctuary and 11 in the proposed area. An abnormally high number of 8,000 to 9,000 cattle, the main source of sustenance for the tribals, share the sanctuary with the wild animals. Conditionsbecome even more punishing for the animals in summer as they are driven towards a corner in the sanctuary towards the temple while the cattle take over the gate end in a bid to monopolise the scanty water and fodder resources. The officials have found traces of the disease in the cattle, and admit that they have put their heads together in vain. ``There is no choice because so far, there is no preventive vaccine for TB and it is very difficult to catch wild tigers and try and diagnose if they have TB,'' said Sen. In any case, if TB is diagnosed, the animals will have to regularly be tranquilised and administered vaccine. ``That will be difficult. We have to make a choice on whether to put them through the agony of tranquilisation, which in any case they find difficult to bear with, or letting some die in the span of a few years,'' said Sen.

For now, the only alternative is to keep vaccinating the cattle as much as possible and create a buffer zone. Officials admit this too has not been done in a focussedmanner, but claim that the reason an epidemic of highly contagious diseases like Foot in Mouth, Rinder Pest, Haemorrhage Septicimia and Anthrax has not broken out in any of the sanctuaries is because of the vaccination drive.

What of chances of the other animals being infected? Specialists say since tiger prefers isolation and the wild, with its fresh air, it will not get infected easily. ``In zoos, 50 per cent of the animals are suffering from bovine TB. That is the reason even zoo keepers are vaccinated. But in a healthy environment, it does not prove to be fatal,'' said Sen.Nature comes to the aid of these animals, they say.