Panaji, Sep 13 - Wildlife activists in Goa are incensed over a government report into a tiger poaching incident in the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary in February that states that the killed animal was not a tiger.

Chief conservator of forests Goa, Shashi Kumar, in a selective leak to the media on Friday had said that forensic examination of the suspected tiger remains by the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehra Dun had revealed that the poached animal was not a tiger.

'Based on the samples sent, Wildlife Institute of India's investigation prima facie shows that it is not a tiger. The preliminary report states that blood samples found on some leaves are also not of a tiger,' Kumar told a vernacular newspaper, adding that the much-delayed report was 'preliminary' in nature and was still 'being analyzed'.

Speaking to IANS Sunday, wildlife conservationist Rajendra Kerkar said the investigations by the forest department into the tiger poaching incident were dubious and that top officials were trying to hush up the poaching case.

'The animal which was killed is a protected animal under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. The investigation is a conspiracy to misguide people by the Goa forest department,' said Kerkar. He had broken the story of the poached tiger, with photographs in the Times of India in April this year, two months after the poaching occurred.