Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 16 (IANS): It has been three weeks since the residents of Kurukkanmoola village in Kerala's Wayanad district have been living in fear of a tiger. Despite the forest officials summoning two trained elephants to trace the wild animal, a cow fell prey to the tiger during the wee hours of Thursday, and a goat has also gone missing, the locals said.

So far 17 domestic animals in the village have been killed by this tiger in the past 17 days. Despite around 100 officials and locals trying their best to locate the tiger, they have only got some CCTV footage of the tiger.

The body of the cow that belonged to a retired teacher, John, was found about 30 metres from his home. After they heard the cries of the cow in the middle of the night, the panic-stricken residents quickly locked their house.

On Thursday morning, they found the cow mauled to death by the tiger.

Top forest official D.K.Vinod Kumar after looking at the wild beast's picture, said that the tiger, which has a deep cut on its neck, is not registered under the tiger database of Wayanad district.

There are various teams of forest officials deployed in and around the area where the tiger has been causing havoc and they have been permitted to use tranquilisers to tame the wild cat.

The man-animal conflict observed in parts of the state where forest borders villages, have been a matter of concern for authorities, and various measures have been employed by the officials to bring solace to the villagers.