Lalchandji and the tigers

Sounds like something out of a Ruskin Bond book.

I looked up the terrain on Google Maps, and it is just as Raza Kazmi describes it  - Pilibhit is a thin horse-shoe-shaped strip of Terai forest bound by tall sugarcane fields on all sides except for the slender forest corridors connecting it to the Shivalik forests of Uttarakhand to its west, Shuklaphanta national park (in Nepal) to its north and Dudhwa tiger reserve to its east.

The Tiger in my Backyard

The lonely life of a forest bungalow guard in UP’s Pilibhit tiger reserve.

Written by Raza Kazmi | Published: January 21, 2018 12:05 am

“Just as dusk begins giving way to the night, I bolt myself inside the rest house. I have my dinner there and stay locked till daybreak. If someone arrives at the main gate at night, he opens the gate himself, I don’t go out. Tigers and leopards regularly enter the compound and there is just one solar light near the kitchen that works. Everything else is engulfed in darkness. Just a few days ago, two tigers came inside the campus and roared for a good two hours while I was holed inside this godforsaken bungalow all alone, waiting for dawn,” says Lalchandji, the chowkidaar at the Mala forest rest house in Uttar Pradesh’s little-known Pilibhit tiger reserve, as he rakes up the dying embers of the small fire we had lit to shield ourselves from the cold.
His caution isn’t without reason. There is a palpable fear among forest staff and locals all across this tiger reserve that has witnessed, perhaps, the worst spate of tiger attacks in India in recent history. More than 20 people have been killed by the striped cats over the past few months, more than one-third of the fatalities being in a 5 km radius of the Mala bungalow. The conflict is primarily fuelled by the unique geography of this tiger reserve. Pilibhit is a thin horse-shoe-shaped strip of Terai forest bound by tall sugarcane fields on all sides except for the slender forest corridors connecting it to the Shivalik forests of Uttarakhand to its west, Shuklaphanta national park (in Nepal) to its north and Dudhwa tiger reserve to its east. The tall sugarcane provides good cover to the big cats as well as their prey, and, consequently, tigers regularly move about in these fields. Villagers must enter as well to tend to their fields and so the stage for tragedy is set. The forest department asks residents to avoid moving about in and around the forest after dark, and to move in large groups if they must.

Lalchandji, however, has no such safety net to fall back on. The ageing veteran stands guard all alone at the bungalow — except for occasional short visits during the day by fellow staff members — because, as he nonchalantly puts it, “Who else will take care of it if not me?” He isn’t a chowkidaar by designation, though. “I am an ardali [orderly]. I got regularised after working nearly three decades on daily wage. I got posted as an ad-hoc chowkidaar here 15 years ago when the last guy died. They have forgotten me here since,” he says with a shrug.
He would have made his peace with this life, but for the the “damn tigers and leopards”. “They won’t leave me in peace even during the day, sometimes. Just a few months ago, three large tigers walked into this fallow field in broad daylight,” he says, pointing towards a small field, barely 15 feet behind me, that was seasonally used to raise nursery crops. “There I was taking a nice bath in the sun when suddenly there were a few peacock calls. The next thing I know, three full grown tigers suddenly walk out of the forest, casually jump over the barbed wire fence and lie down in this field.” His tone betrays a rare hint of excitement. “I was so flustered I couldn’t even get my clothes on! I ran half-naked into the kitchen and bolted the doors. And don’t even get me started on that rascal leopard who climbed up the roof of my quarter!” he scoffs. I try not to laugh at this amusing tirade, but it’s a difficult task: he speaks of them like a grumpy old man expressing his annoyance at street urchins. “They make my life miserable,” he complains, before lapsing into silence. “But, at least, they give me company on lonely days,” he says.
The deer are a big draw for predators in the area. (Photo: Raza Kazmi)Just as he is finishing his story, his phone rings. He squints his eyes, takes out his ancient phone, and then presses the reject button. “Ye ek aur narak bana rakha hai jeevan ko is saale phone ne.” (This damn phone is another object that is making my life hell), he groans. “People from home keep calling, asking me to come for festivals and functions. I have just had three holidays in the last one year. I even spent Diwali alone here. In the silence of the night, I could hear the faint sounds of celebration from Mala village,” he says, his voice plaintive. “This damn phone rang just then, a call from home. I rejected the call…stupid mobile phones,” he mutters.
I ask him why he doesn’t press for leaves. After all, his home is only about 6 km away and his health has steadily declined over the past two years. “Didn’t I tell you already? Who will take care of this place then?” he says and lapses into silence. “But it is going to be over soon. I will be retiring in two months’ time. Then, I will rest for as long as I want. I have some land, maybe I will start farming again,” he says, as a flock of oriental pied hornbills settle on a fig tree for the night.
The glowing red embers of the fire have begun dying. We retire for the night. The next morning, I find him restlessly pacing around the fire he has lit close to the kitchen. I greet him and he lets out a broad smile. “You are sleeping easy here. A leopard walked right past your head in the night!” he says, showing me fresh pugmarks next to the bungalow’s verandah. “Stupid leopard,” he chuckles.

Raza Kazmi is a Jharkhand-based conservationist and a keen student of India’s wildlife history.

TADOBA through the lens of Mr Ramanan

Mr Ramanan visited Tadoba in April this year, and the temperatures of 49 degrees Celsius thankfully did not affect his photography!  The TATR - Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve - is in the centre of India, in Maharashtra, and a reserve that I have not visited.

The forest awaited the monsoons, the teak trees were bare and all creatures big and small looked for shade.

This Brown fish owl (Ketupa zeylonensis) was spending its days in the shade, probably close to a water body.At night, it would be out to hunt.

Orange headed Rock Thrush on the dry teak leaves of the forest floor.  Tadoba is predominantly teak forests.  But is that a largestromia flower peeking at us?

A Crested Serpent Eagle surveys the forest floor for prey

Oriental Honey Buzzard - at the lake.  The sanctuary has the Andhari river running through it, and the Tadoba lake.  The lake is a great place for sightings.

Chousingha (Tetracerus quadricornis), a small four-horned antelope, solitary by nature, and whose numbers are dwindling, as forests have become isolated.  Tadoba is one the few refuges left for this herbivore. A dove walks by in the background.

A barking deer, moving close to a bamboo grove, probably looking for some shade. No antlers as yet for this one.

A massive gaur also at the watering hole.  Their numbers have swelled and they are now a common site in plantation towns in the hills.

The sloth bear on the other hand is an uncommon sighting in the wild   I have not seen one as yet.  Whenever I see pictures of them, I feel that they desperately need a grooming!

As Thyaga remarked, what is it that you didn't see, Mr Ramanan?!  The summer heat meant that all animals looked to minimise their movements.   In a way its arguably the best time to visit a sanctuary, if you are interested in sightings.  Physically uncomfortable, but great sightings!  I personally love to visit when forests are green, and so usually end up not seeing very much beyond the lovely magnificent trees.  The trees are wonderful in themselves, and I do not regret the lack of sightings.

There were a spate of killings by leopards of villagers around Tadoba in 2013, and there was a move to radio collar some of them.  This one obviously not one of them.  

And just when I thought, ok he did not spot a tiger, I saw these pictures!

A summer snooze for the top carnivore.

This is the cub of the tigress named Rani

There are a 100 + tigers in the 650 odd sq kms of the TATR.  Tadoba, Pench, Kanha... one contiguous forest not so long ago, but now islands separated by human habitation.

And as I write this, the forests have been further decimated as the Pench-Kanha corridor is witnessing the development of an elevated highway.  The elevated sections are supposed to mitigate the effect on wildlife by allowing them to cross underneath.

Is this realistic and what about the interim displacement and habitat loss?  Could not the highway skirt this corridor?

This goat was supposed to be a Siberian tiger’s dinner. Now they are best friends, and it is charming Russia. - The Washington Post

 The Washington Post



What a truly amazing story!  Amur has lost his appetite for goat it seems.

This goat was supposed to be a Siberian tiger’s dinner. Now they are best friends, and it is charming Russia.

MOSCOW — An unlikely friendship between a tiger and a goat who was supposed to be his dinner has charmed Russia.

In a zoo in the far reaches of Siberia, predator and prey have become best buddies. Amur the tiger and Timur the goat’s charmed life started in late November, when Amur decided not to eat the goat unleashed into his enclosure.

The intention was that the goat would be a gastronomic delight, not a playpal. But instead the two animals appear to have bonded, sharing a food bowl and appearing to play with each other by romping through Amur’s pen.

Before the new year, they had already drawn enough attention that the Primorsky Safari Park set up a live webfeed of the enclosure. But they rocketed to stardom when one of Russia’s state-run television networks unveiled a 44-minute documentary odeto their friendship during the slow news week between New Year’s Day and Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7, a time when all of Russia is on holiday.

“The situation is really weird. For three years running we have fed Amur a huge number of goats, rabbits, roosters and rams,” said Dmitry Mezentsev, the general director of the Primorsky Safari Park, in a telephone interview from the zoo, which is in Russia’s far southeast, seven hours ahead of Moscow.

“As a rule, Amur gets prey twice a week. My only explanation is that this couldn't have happened without interference of the higher power,” the zoo director said.

The friendship started after the goat, seemingly unfazed that it was on the dinner menu, chased the tiger out of his sleeping place, a converted aviary, and claimed the comfortable area for its own. Amur, apparently confused that the goat was not properly submissive, went to sleep on the roof.

“Amur has never rejected prey before,” Mezentsev said. “There was just one case when the goat given to Amur lived through the night. Amur ate him the following morning.”

Since their first encounter, the pair have spent their days together, watched by an increasing number of Russians who want to see the strange match.

“Every morning Santa Claus brings a treat of apples and cabbage for Timur, and meat for Amur,” the zookeeper said. The zoo has given up feeding goats to the tiger, instead switching to a two-rabbit diet, twice a week, and supplementing with other meats every day.

Timur and Amur enjoy playing with a ball, one snatching it from the other and running away, as the other tries to catch up, Mezentsev said. They are prepping for the 2018 World Cup, which will be held in Russia, he joked.

Amur, a Siberian tiger, has benefited from conservation efforts promoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The species, also known as the Amur tiger, is endangered, and there are an estimated 550 alive. But population levels have stabilized in recent years. Putin released three cubs into the wild in 2014. They drew headlines when one wandered into China and snacked on local farmers’ livestock before returning to Russia.

Lena Yegorova contributed to this report.

Sanctuary Asia talks about the way forward

The Way Forward

October 2012: Praveen Pardeshi, Principal Secretary, Forests, Government of Maharashtra, has been one of the architects of wildlife conservation in this proud state for decades. He writes here about his vision for the future and the steps taken by the Maharashtra Government to implement plans to secure the natural heritage of generations unborn.

The Great Indian Bustard and Nannaj

It is four a.m. in Solapur, the year is 1996. My five-year-old daughter and I creep across the still dark grasslands of Nannaj to sit in our little hide. As the sun rises, casting a pinkish glow across the eastern horizon, a soft booming call echoes across the undulating landscape. An alpha male Great Indian Bustard (GIB) is courting females, head thrown back, gular pouch raised, and tail up. Moments later, a covey of female bustards shufflepast, foraging for crickets that have come to gorge on the fresh, green grass.
Though this bustard and his countless ancestors have exhibited their mating rituals on the small lookout plateau of Nannaj-Mardi for millennia, there is no guarantee that our children will still see this display 20 years from now.
The GIB sanctuary was scattered over 8,200 sq. km., whereas a much smaller forest area needed to be made inviolate for the bustards to breed. If even this small area could be well protected, we could secure the future of this endangered bird for posterity. It was vital, however, to include areas such as the Gangewadi grasslands into this more tightly-protected bustard haven. People had begun to turn hostile towards the birds because they considered the declaration of a vast 8,200 sq. km. sanctuary dedicated to bustards as illogical, since the birds were not found in most of the areas here. What is more, entire towns such as Solapur, Mohol and Karmala were included within the Protected Area boundary! Wildlife conservation was proving to be an obstacle as it came in the way of the alignments for highways, canals and even in the decisions they had to make about how best to use their own lands. Blackbuck learned to hide in protected forest patches in the day and then to devastate jowar and groundnut crops of farmers at night. Had the state government not denotified a huge chunk of the GIB Sanctuary, neither the blackbuck, nor the bustards would have been able to survive.
Today, a major effort is underway to win support for organic farming in the neighbourhood of this sanctuary, a step that will enhance the food availability and safety of the GIB which consumes beetles and other insects.
How quickly things can deteriorate can be judged by the fact that as the District Collector of Solapur from 1995 to 1997, I would see GIBs on every visit to Nannaj.
On none of my recent visits was I able to see a bird, not even on the bird’s favourite hillock, where my daughter and I used to see them so often. It worries me, of course, to observe how farmers who were once happy to grow coarse grains like jowar now want to grow sugarcane, flowers and pomegranates, thanks to the abundant water they obtain from the Ujjani dam. If this trend continues, then grassland species, such as the blackbuck, chinkara, grey wolf and the GIB face a bleak future.

The Melghat Tiger Reserve: Cattle and people

I first visited Melghat in 1979, when it had just been brought under the Project Tiger mantle. On night drives, we came across gaur and sambar, but during the day all we saw were cows and buffaloes… no wild herbivores. A decade later, I returned as Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Parishad, Amravati, with a clear mandate to implement programmes to reduce poverty. The sustenance of Korku tribal communities  depended on lightly-cultivated soils on which they grew wild millets including kodo and kutki. Each year roughly half their crop would be lost to deer and wild pigs, not to mention beetles and grasshoppers. The sanctuary regulations did not permit black topping of access roads, new dams for irrigation or setting up cotton ginning and dal mills, all of which were possible just a few kilometres outside the wildlife sanctuary.
Protecting wild animals in the 1,500 sq. km. Melghat Tiger Reserve, with 28 villages, a population of 16,000 humans and 11,000 head of cattle, was a huge challenge. Particularly, when you consider that the estimated number of herbivores was a mere 3,500 on which 34 tigers were supposed to depend. At that time, neither the tiger, nor the Korku people seemed to be doing too well. The tigers would resort to cattle raiding, particularly during the monsoons, and Korku cattle owners and farmers had to suffer not only crop losses, but bear attacks and cattle kills.
We had to cut this Gordian Knot if both people, and the reserve, were to be provided a real and sustainable future.
We took a conscious decision to develop variegated strategies based on local geography, social conditions and ecological circumstances. We also aimed to involve local communities in regenerating ecosystems on which their own lives would ultimately depend. In the last 18 months, with the support of the Chief Minister, Prithviraj Chavan and Forest Minister, Dr. Patangrao Kadam, Maharashtra’s political and administrative system, the Forest Department has been able to put these plans to the test. And while it is still too soon to pass judgement, the landscape-wide approach seems to be showing results that point towards a renewal that will benefit both livelihoods and biodiversity conservation.

Photograph by Mihir Godbole/Wild Maharashtra

The last remaining vast forests of Vidarbha: A nuanced approach to protecting Melghat, and Tadoba

The Satpuda and Tadoba landscapes are two of the largest contiguous forests remaining in Maharashtra. Home to source populations of tiger, gaur, chital, sambar and endemic birds such as the Forest Owlet, the hill forests of Melghat have relatively low herbivore and tiger populations, in contrast to the plains of Tadoba and the Karandla, Bor and Nagzira landscapes, all of which have dense populations of herbivores and, consequently, tigers.
Over the past two years, we have evolved a nuanced strategy to meet our biodiversity objectives, while simultaneously catering to the sensitivities and the needs of local communities. In Tadoba’s core area, we began with the voluntary rehabilitation of villages. And to provide space for spillover populations of tigers and herbivores, we have managed to expand inviolate Protected Areas such as Nagzira and Navegaon and their corridors. In Melghat, however, 15 of 28 villages will remain in the core. Here, we are trying to promote co-existence by reducing their dependence on forest biomass. This involves providing alternative fuelwood, fodder and also by encouraging eco-tourism based livelihoods.

The larger Melghat Landscape: Co-existence and conservation

In Melghat, we have been implementing a strategy of ecological development in the buffer zone villages. Six out of 28 villages have already been rehabilitated after they passed the necessary Gram Panchayat and Gram Sabha resolutions. These include Vairat, Churni, Dhargad, Barukheda, Amona and Nagartas whose rehabilitation package was specifically tailored to fit individual requirements. Churni and Vairat, for instance, wanted land for the land they gave up. This was done, even the landless got land and the new village gaothan was provided water supply, electricity, black top approach roads and access to schools. Their farms were provided well-irrigation by tapping existing state schemes. They all agreed to move away from free grazing of livestock in the forest to stall feeding, which also supplies biogas-based fuel for kitchen fires.
Amona, Nagartas, Dhargad opted to collect the National Tiger Conservation Authority package of 10 lakh rupees per adult in the family. The Forest Department and Collector’s Office chose to ‘hand-hold’ the process by providing two lakh rupees for relocation and construction of homes. To prevent men from squandering this sum, seven lakh rupees was placed in a long-term, monthly interest-yielding annuity, which cannot be encashed without the prior permission of a committee headed by the District Collector. Each family thus draws a monthly income of Rs. 6,500 (calculated at nine per cent interest with the State Bank of India). With prior permission of the Collector, 60 families chose to encash the bank deposit, and have purchased more than 70 ha. of valuable agricultural land.
Going beyond the legal stipulations of the ‘cash package’ to help develop the new village sites, the administration provided drinking water, electricity to each home, internal roads to newly-settled villages and more. All four newly-settled villages chose their own sites next to, or as part of an existing, developed gaothan so that they could benefit from existing infrastructure and connectivity to larger towns.
Credible NGOs such as the Satpuda Foundation led by Kishor Rithe worked with dynamic forest officials such as Srinivasa Reddy, then the Deputy Conservator, Akot and A. K. Mishra, Field Director, Melghat, because they knew that delivering real benefits to villagers was key to the tiger’s future.
Camera trap images reveal the return of gaur, chital and tiger to all the meadows that magically regenerated after the villages moved out. Following the principle of ‘nothing succeeds like success’, villages that were initially hesitant are now flooding us with requests for similar rehabilitation packages. This includes Semadoh, Somthana, Talai, Rora, Gullarghat and we now need to obtain the resources to enable this. An independent socio-economic study by the Amravati University reveals that in the rehabilitated villages the per capita income has tripled!

Photograph by Praveen Pardeshi

The larger Tadoba Landscape: Inviolate core with eco-tourism and sustainable agriculture in the buffer, inclusion of corridors in expanded Protected Area network

“Why is the tiger coming to our village every day? Do something about it!” That was the continual refrain of one resident of Jamni village who kept disrupting a meeting I was attending to discuss the park-people relationship. I imagine that in bygone days Jim Corbett must have faced similar outcries, but the villager no longer had the option of summoning Jim Corbett to solve the problem his way!
Later that day I was at the Pandharpauni lake in Tadoba, when I saw a tigress with her four cubs that showed up as if on cue in response to the heat of summer. Ideally, villagers living around Tadoba and similar wild landscapes should profit from the presence of tigers. Instead today, the tourism trade and visitors benefit, while villagers are left paying the price in terms of loss of livestock, crop raiding and constant fear.
Tadoba, Jamni, Navegaon, and most of the families of Kolsa have opted for voluntary rehabilitation outside the park. Funds were allocated for Navegaon and Jamni to move to chosen sites at Amdi and Khadsanghi on the Mul-Nagpur road with irrigation, electricity and drinking water facilities at the gaothan itself.Tiger conservationist Bandu Dhotre, and the husband and wife team Poonam and Harsh Dhanwatey who run the Tiger Research And Conservation Trust (TRACT) have both played positive roles by working with the Forest Department, while representing the villagers’ interests.
But this is not enough. In the buffer zone and in forests under the Territorial Division of the Forest Department, serious tiger-poaching incidents have recently taken place. It is here that the spillover populations of tigers are lost after they leave the protective care of the 10 to 12 breeding females that occupy Tadoba’s core critical habitats. Strengthening less-protected forests such as the corridors leading to Bhivapur, Navegaon and Bor is therefore essential. This is what has occupied Dr. Vinay Sinha, Field Director, Tadoba, who did his PhD. in participatory Forest Management, over the past year. Working on a strategy to share revenues earned from tourism with villagers in the buffer zone, he used the gate fees of Rs. 45 lakhs lying with the Tadoba Tiger Foundation to give a sum of Rs. 51,000 to each of the 53 villages in the buffer zone. This was used for community welfare on necessities such as biogas plants and stall feeding of cattle.
He also placed a moratorium on more than 51 vehicles entering Tadoba’s core, while empowering the Junoana and Devada villages outside core areas to erect a gate and collect fees from visitors who chose to avail of a specially-created wildlife route managed by the village Eco-Development Committees (EDC). Additionally, local youth were trained as wildlife guides. With 15 more routes planned in the protected buffer, these areas promise wildlifesightings comparable to those in the core. The experiment seems to have succeeded. Seeds have been sown for livelihoods that sustain people, while benefitting the tiger.

Sustainable livelihoods linked to a rise in tiger and wildlife populations: Koyna, Chandoli and Bhimashankar: A mix of rehabilitation and community based eco-tourism

Villages in the Koyna Sanctuary, like Dichauli, Punawali, Nahimbe and Ambheghar suffer a double burden. The Koyna reservoir has cut them off from their normal economic markets in Karad and Satara, and the declaration of the Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary has led to further restrictions on them, making transportation, livelihoods and energy a huge challenge. Such villages have been petitioning for rehabilitation for several years and we are trying to raise resources to meet their demands. Over the past year, the state Forest Department has managed to develop village infrastructure in Pulus and Babar Machi, where nearly 200 families have already shifted, free from crop depredation by wild pigs and sambar!
In the vast buffer zone around Koyna, Joint Forest Management Committees have become active. Working with the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve officials they have developed trekking routes for intrepid hikers who will be invited to walk designated trails on the understanding that theirs will be zero-garbage visits, and that all waste will be carried back out of the park. Local village guides, familiar with the area have been trained by expert naturalists who will add to the monitoring strength of poaching squads, particularly in the remote crest areas that are difficult to reach daily, even for forest guards, particularly during the monsoon.

Hope for the future

In recent years, with advancing climate change, habitat destruction and pollution, India has been battered by bad news. But we also have news of resurrection and recoveries – for instance, the slow return of Gyps vultures (with the Bombay Natural History Society taking the lead) and olive Ridley sea turtles (thanks to Bhau Katdare and his inspirational team of volunteers off the coast of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg).
Recognising the wisdom of using the internal motivation of NGOs, the Maharashtra Forest Department is adding its strength by co-financing ‘vulture restaurants’ to ensure Diclofenac-free food. Support for collecting and hatching of olive Ridley turtle eggs and releasing them is underway. All the tiger reserves of the state have received support from Hemendra Kothari’s purposeful Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT), which donates patrolling vehicles and equipment for forest staff. In the case of the GIB and the grey wolf, the process of protecting grasslands is underway, though the course is predictably long and uncertain.
It is my view that Homo sapiens may well be able to reverse the destruction of nature. This article is a plea to all of you to join hands with Forest Departments and conservationists to make this a reality. Admittedly we have a long way to go.But we now know the right direction.

Photograph by Anish Andheria
by Praveen Pardeshi, First appeared in: Sanctuary Asia Vol. XXXII No.3, October 2012

Cubs for T-19!

The Hindu reports that it is Celebration time at Ranthambhore as T 19 is spotted with her 3 cubs.

The MNS group were at Ranthambhore in the summer of 2010, and there was sufficient Tiger spotting including T 17 and T 19, mentioned in this article. It was nice to read of their successful breeding.

Its always a female to lure a male

They tried with Kartik the elephant and failed, but it seems to have worked with T7, the nomadic tiger from Ranthambhore who landed up in Bharatpur!

The use of feminine charm to lure the "errant" male!

Elusive Bharatpur tiger netted
SUNNY SEBASTIAN
Truant T-7 lured by the recorded call of female tigers

The elusive T-7 which was ruling the roost in the Keoladeo National Park (KNP) bird sanctuary near Bharatpur for the past four months has been captured by the wildlife authorities.

The tiger, tranquillised by a team of experts from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the Sariska Tiger Reserve and the KNP around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, was taken to Sariska by road an hour later.

Now T-7, a habitual wanderer who left his original home at the Ranthambore National Park for the Kaila Devi Sanctuary in the neighbourhood and later to Dholpur and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, is heading for Sariska as per the announcement made last month by Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh during a visit to Keoladeo.

Difficult customer

Curiously, T-7, which proved a difficult customer for the experts during the past eight days, was finally caught after it was lured by the recorded call of female tigers. “We have been after the tiger since February 14, but it proved very elusive. Then we thought of trying this technique,” Keoladeo field director Anoop K.R., who was travelling with the caravan headed for Sariska, told The Hindu on Thursday evening.

“We requisitioned recorded calls of the female, and once I received them through e-mail, we played it on Wednesday inside the park at four different places on loudspeakers. To our surprise, the tiger responded and appeared from the thicket of juliflora some 100 metres away,” Mr. Anoop said.

WII's P.K. Malik shot the tranquillising dart and the animal immediately plunged into the thickly wooded area. “It was a great relief to find him unconscious across the road,” Mr. Anoop said.

The team on the spot, which comprised Sariska field director R.S. Shekhawat, forester Narain Singh and researcher Shubheep besides Mr. Anoop and Dr. Mallick, soon transferred T-7 into a wooden cage. The cage has been used earlier to shift big cats —five till date — from Ranthambore to Sariska as part of the now well-known rehabilitation plan for tigers.

Except for one, all other tigers from Ranthambore were airlifted by Air Force helicopters to Sariska. T-7 is the first tiger caught outside Ranthambore to be moved to Sarika, which lost a tiger CP-1, last year.

“Now T-7 will be referred to as ST-6 or CP-6, the sixth tiger to be introduced to Sariska,” said Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Rajasthan P.S. Somasekhar.

“We may keep the animal in one of the enclosures in Sariska for two or three days before releasing it in the park,” he said. “We hope it soon gets a real call from the three females there.”

A happy ending to this story. Lets hope T7 now to be known as CP6, will thrive in Sariska!

Truth About Tigers

YouTube - TruthAboutTigers

MNS member Shekar Dattatri's 40 minute film is now on Youtube.

A tiger spotted at Bharatpur

Bharatpur is home to the Keoladeo bird sanctuary. The article below was sent to the MNS e-group, and I was immediately transported back in time to the winter adventures of the Mad Madrasis, our 53 hour train ride to get to Bharatpur, and our daily cycling (mis)adventures at the park.

And now a tiger, identified as T7 has been spotted on camera (but not in person), devouring a boar, and suspected at having killed a nilgai as well. He seems to be a maverick tiger, sort of lone ranger, outlaw type, having made his way from Ranthambhore.

The Hindu article.

The male tiger that intruded into the Keoladeo National Park bird sanctuary near Bharatpur in Rajasthan this past Sunday is seemingly enjoying his stay and is in no hurry to leave. The animal, now confirmed as T-7 of Ranthambhore National Park, which announced his arrival in Keoladeo with the killing of a blue bull, has over the past two days hunted a wild boar and a calf of feral cattle and fed on the former ignoring the calf. Though the bird sanctuary staff has been keeping a vigil, the tiger has not made an appearance before the humans so far.

“The tiger continues to be in Keoladar area of the sanctuary where the grass is standing tall. No one could spot it so far despite a strict vigil. However, we have now with us a set of 25 photographs of the animal eating the wild boar, taken with the help of a trap camera,” informed Anoop K.R., Field Director of the National Park, speaking from Bharatpur on Friday.

“The tiger seemingly consumed the wild boar fully though some of the photographs show a hyena in the background,” he said.

The tiger was on the run for the past fortnight after attacking and injuring over half a dozen persons at Mathura in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. Curiously this is the same tiger, estimated to be around four years old, which had badly mauled a range officer in a village on the periphery of Ranthambhore National Park a month back. Even prior to this, T-7 has been shuttling between Ranthambhore Park and the neighbouring sanctuary of Kailadevi before choosing the long haul to the Rajasthan-UP border. Experts are of the view that going by its past behaviour the animal is not to remain in the 29 sq km area of the sanctuary for long.

“I have watched this tiger closely. He is not to stop here for long,” said Dharmendra Khandal, Director of Tiger Watch at Ranthambhore. Dr. Khandal, who confirmed the animal in the picture as T-7, said the authorities should devise a plan for shifting it to any tiger sanctuary, preferably not Sariska. He was dismissive of taking it back to Ranthambhore or Kailadevi as the former was already “saturated for tigers” and the latter did not have an adequate prey base.

“We can exchange it for a tigress from Madhya Pradesh. The animal can be shifted to Kuno, Panna or Kanha. This could be a gene pool exchange which will benefit the tigers from both the States,” he argued.

There have been reports in local newspapers about the Rajasthan forest authorities planning to shift T-7 to Sariska to join the already existing five tigers, relocated from Ranthambhore. “There are already two male tigers in Sariska now and another male is not of any additional relevance,” he pointed out.

There is reason for the authorities at Van Bhavan, the Forest Department headquarters here, and at Keoladeo National Park to worry as T-7 is a tiger with a past. The young cat has attacked a good number of people and has seemingly lost its fear of human beings. Keoladeo is a bird sanctuary where the visitors normally move either on foot or on bicycles and cycle rickshaws. “T-7 is no more afraid of the presence of humans. That is not going to help much as it has a history of attacking humans,” Dr. Khandal observed.

Its travelled a fair distance!


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Rains!

Skyblue clustervine
August rains, unusual but welcome. It was a wet weekend in Hyderabad and a wetter week that followed in Madras. The papers are full of gripes - bad roads, potholes, overflowing drains, Stadia roofs leaking....Man's woes.

But I look around and I see that every other non-human creature around me is celebrating! The dust and pollution has been washed off the leaves, the cactii greeted the rain with more flowers, I heard the croaking of frogs after aeons, and the morning skies were oh so blue.

So here's my photo offering to that wonderful season of monsoon.

There was torrential rain one night, accompanied by all the sound and light effects that go with a thundershower.

I woke up in the morning to the call of sunbirds, koels and mynahs. This was in Shameerpet, near Hyderabad at a place called Celebrity Resorts.

I also awoke later than I would've liked, thanks to hysterical friends who insisted on hearing strange knockings and feeling imaginary rats crawling up their sheets, in the night!

All were much relieved to see daylight, reassured that all was well with the world, and the sun streaming through the trees was most welcome.

This butterfly (that I thought was a Common Crow) in the rain tree was blissfully unaware of all this nightly drama, as it went about its butterfly day briskly and flightily. As Amila pointed out, its actually a Great Eggfly! Take a look at both the links and this picture and you'll see that there are differences in the way the dots are aligned on the wing tips! Thank you Amila!

A female garden lizard basked in the grass, and obligingly held her pose for me. Some metres away, grown men were yelling like boys as they played a tennis ball cricket match as if their life depended on it.

As I explored the rear garden of our cottage, I saw these wasps hard at work. Are those white dots in the middle of the hexagons their eggs, I wondered.

The rains, I assumed, had led to hatching of hordes of these millipede-like arthopods all over the campus.

They just lay there in clumps, crawling all over each other and moving collectively across the fields. Hundred had been squished under car tyres, and it was not a very pleasant sight I tell you.

I have never seen them in clumps like this, and I wondered what they were. Anyone knows?

The bird life at the resort was amazing. The grounds are vast and wild, and I only hope it remains that way - wild I mean. It would be a pity if the grounds are landscaped.

Not wanting to miss out on the company of friends, and unable to convince them to walk with me in the middday sun, I went for an hour's meander, and did regret not having more time.

There were doves, scaly-breasted munias, mynahs, jungle babblers, bee eaters and sunbirds by the dozens. Red-vented bulbuls called out from everywhere, and I heard coucals and even peacocks!

Strangely, I did not hear a single barbet nor did I hear tree pies. I heard orioles and I caught a flash of scarlet - could it have been a minivet?
Scaly-breasted munias

They were all over the resort, and a first-time for me! I love the stout bills of the munias.
They were a gregarious lot, and I saw flocks like this on trees and in the tall grass. My most memorable moment was coming upon a group of them having a bath in the rain puddle. I delighted in their pleasure, as they whirred around and flew up and down from the nearby shrubs, the whirr of their wings so loud in the quietness.

This one looked busy picking at all the seeds in the grass heads. Everytime a munia landed on a grass, it would bend over with the weight, but they hung on...yoyoing up and down!

So entranced was I with the munias that I almost missed this purple sunbird that came and perched right over my head!

Back in Madras, and the rains continued. A wet Kingfisher sat on the Millingtonia outside my window, waiting for its wings to dry.

The rains also brought a large number of damselflies to my balcony. Strange, delicate creatures and I watched them flit from plant to plant, with their slender bodies bending, almost to form a circle.

I thought this one is a Golden dartlet. Amila says (see comment below) that its probably an Agriocnemis. Hmmm.

I used the Macro setting in my Panasoic Lumix digicam. Not bad, huh?


As I watched the dartlet, I was startled by this grasshoppper that whirred in front of my face, and landed on the leaf ahead. We eyeballed each other for a while, before it took off again for the next plant.




A crow called excitedly overhead, and I wondered if this grasshoppper was going to be lunch. It didn't. It came indoors that evening, and explored our apartment at leisure. It has a strange mannerism of using the foreleg to clean its antenna, and I must say it was more entertaining to watch than the cricket on the telly.

(By the way, I am sick of the over commercialism, greed and ridiculous marketing that is happening through the cricket telecast...impossible to watch.)

Tigers & butterflies

Arun was in Tadoba, for a weekend trip, along with his camera.

He writes:, "The forest was unbelieveably brilliant green , with the rain everyday . The rivers and streams were a raging torrent and a number of 'roads'/paths were underwater. Very often we would have to turn back and look for another place to cross. Sometimes the passage would be one-way(the water level having risen by the time we returned). Birdwatching was limited , notable being Monarch flycatcher sitting in its nest in full view at a height of about 15 feet. And a number of Streak-throated swallows."

I enjoyed being there, via these lovely pictures. Enjoy!

Arun's TADOBA recce - mid monsoon 2010

Bandhavgarh - Land of Tigers

So we thought we had seen a lot of tigers at Ranthambhore, but here's somebody who has seen plenty too, and lovely photos to boot! Arun spent ten days at the Bandhavgarh sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. Bandhavgarh has one of the highest tiger densities if I'm not mistaken, and also has a fort atop the hill within the sanctuary. However, the forests are evergreen sal (like Kanha) and not dhok like Ranthambhore.

Enjoy !

BANDHAVGARH - - Land of Tigers - arun - Picasa Web Albums

Tiger spotting at Ranthambhore

Stunning cliffs and ravines make up the Ranthambhore terrain.

A few years ago, we visited Dungarpur. The palace, now a hotel (a wonderfully hospitable one at that), has a Shikar room. I walked in, and my stomach lurched I can tell you. Eyes of tiger, sambar, chital, leopard stared down from the walls. 99 tigers, the raja of old was supposed to have killed...its unsurprising that there are no tigers left in those forests.

1900 - around 40,000 tigers

1970 - 2,000, 2010 - just about 1,100.
The Banyan tree near Jogi Mahal, famous in its own right.

As I wandered the dry forests of Ranthambhore under an April sun, my mind wandered. What an unlikely saviour the tigers had in Indira Gandhi. A PM who invoked Emergency, was insecure and power-hungry, arguably destroyed several of India's institutions...and yet, she banned all hunting in India in 1970, put a stop to fur and skins export, stood firm on Silent Valley, started mechanisms to monitor our forests and was the initiator of Project Tiger.
Dhok trees, dry and bare in the summer

And then Ranthambhore had (still has) Fateh Singh Rathore and Valmik Thapar. I came back to Madras and read about the formation of the sanctuary, the efforts needed to relocate the villages within the park, and I was truly humbled. It is because of the single-minded efforts of people like this, and the countless underpaid, poorly trained forest rangers and wildlife wardens that we cling on to our remaining forests and wildlife.

Ranthambhore offered me a glimpse of my first tigers in the wild. I have seen them angrily pacing in the Mysore zoo and gone away unhappy and somehow ashamed. Ashamed because my fellow Indians taunted and teased them. My son then burst out that he was never going back to a zoo in his life....and we haven't.

T 17, the tigress we saw several times, cooling off at the Padam lake. behind her are crocodiles on the mud island!

Ranthambhore -the forest was dry and hot, the landscape for the most part bleak, almost like we were touring a nuclear holocaust area, the dhok trees stood bare, the herbivores were listless. But then I saw the tiger, and I was spellbound. She was far away, sitting by the banks of the Padam lake. It was a strangely serene scene. Jogi Mahal was to our left, the huge banyan tree behind. The crocs lay on the little mud island in the middle, egrets stood stock still, while the stilts moved around in their usual self-absorbed fashion. And the peafowl moved uncaringly close to the tigress.

She was not in a hunting mood, and the jungle was aware of this. After a while, she stood up, and a feline stretch later, strolled into the elephant grass, and vanished from sight. This was T17, we were told. Just google her, and you will find that she's widely photographed. Daughter of the famous Machli. My view was rather different from this one, also at Jogi Mahal:

"One massive male that Fateh and Valmik named Genghis introduced in 1983 a method of killing never before observed anywhere else on earth. He routinely hid in the eall grass that lines the largest of the lakes, then stormed out into the water to snatch an unwary sambar before it could make it ack to solid ground - and he performed this spectacular feat in full view of the guests sipping tea on the verandah of the Jogi Mahal. "

Tiger and Tigerwallahs, Geoffrey C Ward

What stars these are, the tigers of Ranthambhore! Each with a story and a lineage. I was hooked. Yes, the Thicknees and Buntings were delightful and all that, but this was something else! That was sighting number one for me.

The ravine below, where we saw the sister-brother duo

Many ravines, dry dhok trees, scurrying peacocks, moulting sambhar later, we arived at the edge of a cliff, and this is what we saw below. A brother and sister duo of tigers, orphaned at birth. Their mother killed in a fight with another male tiger.

Their survival itself was a miracle according to the guides, since they had not yet learnt to hunt proficiently. We were told that they hunt together and kind of hang out together as well.

A short video- listen to the howling wind.

The terrain on the cliff top. These cacti were spectacular and added colour to the brown summer scene

The jeep in which my husband and son were, saw them kind of gambolling and pawing at each other! By the time we arrived, we just saw the one sitting in the grass below, and after a bit she kind of rolled over and slept, sprawled like she had no care in the world.

A loud laugh from one of us, and the head came up and she stared at us, before dropping off again - its only those pesky humans.

The male tiger (I think), the one we did not see initially, but saw later as he slept on his back under a tree!

The male had wandered off and we did not see him at all. We hung around on the top of the cliff, a strong wind whipping the sand into our faces. Our jeep was right at the edge, and the wind was making me nervous, never a good one for heights you see.

But we were rewarded for our patience. The male appeared on the other side of the water, loped off to a tree, sat down, and then like a puppy dog, kind of rolled on his back and went to sleep with his feet in the air! I am not kidding! He was too far away to get a shot, but we were able to see him with our binoculars.

The one that rolled over and went to sleep, in front of us.

The stripes, so evident and clear are such a wonderful camouflage in this straw-coloured grass. We saw him moving and then settling under the tree. Those who did not, found it very hard to even find him.

Just like sighting Number three, asleep under this rocky outcrop. T17 again, radio-collar giving her away. Its amazing the amount they sleep!
Was this T 17 again? It was a radio-collared tiger.

In fact, Ranthambhore made it easy to lose sight of the fact that while tigers are beautiful, they are never cuddly. I once spent a whole afternoon watching four tigers sleep off a meal. They were dozing in the shade; I was sitting in the sun. No human sound seemed to disturb them: our restless shifting in the jeep had no effect on the loud, steady, bellowlike sound of their breathing, neither did the voices of the road crew passing in the distance, nor a series of blasts from a rock quarry outside the park. After the third hot, drowsy hour, it was all I could do to stop myself from getting down to sleep alongside them. Then, the gentle flutter of a tree-pie's wings hopping too close to the kill brought the tigress roaring to her feet - and me to my senses. Even the minutest threat to her kill offered by a small bird had demanded action; so might I have had I actually got down. But siting in the jeep, neither menace nor potential meal, I was just part of the landscape.

Tigers and Tigerwallahs, Geoffrey C Ward,

Our canter moved on then as we heard of another tiger further down in the ravine. A langur gave an alarm call, and the sambars stood alert with their tails in the air. We stopped and waited, as the guide hissed that it was probably a leopard. But after 10 minutes and no movement, we trundled along further, and came upon a clearing with about five jeeps wedged in, but no tiger.

Or so I thought, until we looked past the jeeps into a cave covered with roots, and saw a massive head! And even more massive paws.
Kumbakarna, or so I thought as he slumbererd on and on!
And so it was, he slumbered on an on. and we waited and waited. The cliffs around us were spectacular. Parakeets screeched all around. But the tiger slept.

In one of the jeeps was a professional photographer. He was its sole occupant. We had seen him earlier, and he was also staying at the same place that we were. Anyways, whenever we saw him in the park he was asleep! With a cap over his face, sprawled on the back seat. He had a long, threatening looking camera lens, and the guide looked out for him. We were told that he would wake up only when the tiger woke.

So we wondered whether the opposite would work, we wake him and the tiger would awake? Mr Swami suggested we have a roaring competition to rouse the tiger (fear not, we didn't), a magpie robin entertained us with his music.

Usha took refuge under her orange dupatta, looking like a giant anthill which had been smeared with turmeric, my son amused himself by taking a series of self-portraits on our digicam (I discovered this later of course!). And still he slept. Some of the jeep drivers banged their doors shut louder than was necessary, and it reverberated through the forest.

Suddenly there was movement, and a hush fell over the waiting crowd. The tiger needed a pillow, and moved himself into a more comfortable position. It was 5:30 in the evening, time was running out, we would have to leave soon, since the park rules were that we needed to be out of the park by 6.30.
Suddenly, an eye opened. I took my binoculars up, and was completely disconcerted to find myself eyeballing the tiger, as he stared at us. There is nothing friendly about a tiger looking at you, I can say. I think that if I was caught in front of a tiger, I would be too terrified to even run.

And here were we, in various jeeps and canters, most without an escape route. All it needed was an annoyed and irritated tiger to lash out with that almighty paw, and we would have a tragedy on our hands. We left before the tiger left its den, sadly (or may be thankfully?!).

In the name of tourism, me thinks we are pushing our luck, crowding tigers with our jeeps, flashbulbs, and raised voices. The tiger does not attack a jeep is the old adage, and I for one am least convinced about this.

In a way, I was relieved that all our encounters were from a safe distance, no harm to us, and no disturbance to the tiger.
Spot the tiger! T17 again rests at the base of the tree in the rear!

A flame of the forest tree with some flower. Its a common tree in Ranthambhore, though most of the other trees were in pod

Sighting number five was outside the park, from the buffer zone. Our jeep driver raced there, upon hearing that a tiger had just moved from Padam lake into the undergrowth, and so we went in order to catch her, as she emerged on the other side. We parked ourselves and sat, and after a while I stared dreamily out, the heat making me feel that the lake was a nice place to be in (no thought of crocodiles on my mind of course), when I saw some stripes walking past. "Ay, tiger, tiger!", I exclaimed most unimaginatively, and soon there was a rush of canters and jeeps around us. Its in the thicket in the picture above. Try look for it! Else take my word!

The ones that got away, or the sightings we did not have!

Of course, there were other members of our gang of 27, who had different encounters, and wonderful pictures to boot. Here is one such, as narrated by R Shantaram.

A Gypsy came rushing up to the group of vehicles. The message was crisp: at Lakharda, near Mandu Point, a pair of tigers had dragged a kill across the road from a waterhole. The race was on. Canters galloped, Gypsies careened, as every vehicle tried to be the first on the scene, to grab the best spot for watching the tigers. But even before we reached there, four or five other vehicles had cornered the vantage points. Not that we were complaining.

Lakarda male- Photo by Mr Ramanan

We had a wonderful view, as the male tiger (T 28) – a large 4-year old – got up, crossed the road up ahead of us and walked towards us, stopping at the waterhole, where he slaked his thirst. Strolling back, he went about 25 feet away from the road and lay down, sated, needing some peace and quiet, now.

Lakarda female-Photo by Mr Ramanan

The tigress (T 19) was still feeding at the kill, but soon, she needed water as well and so cut across the road to the waterhole. Maybe the male felt protective, for he too got up and circled the vehicles, getting to the waterhole. He saw that the tigress wasn’t too worried about the crowd of onlookers – there were close to a hundred people, standing up on the seats of their vehicles, trying to get pictures the best they could – and had settled herself quite comfortably into the small waterhole, so he wandered back to the other side of the road. The tigress continued to lie in the water, soaking herself for a while, allowing everyone to take a good look at her. When she had enough of it, she got up, intending to walk back to her kill the way she had cut across the road. But by now there was a double line of vehicles blocking that path, so she had to go around, behind the last vehicle.
Photo by Mr Ramanan

That Gypsy suddenly gunned its engines and reversed, keeping abreast of the tigress – thankfully, it was only for a few seconds and the big girl was allowed to get across before she could build up her anger. We had been there for almost an hour, though it seemed but a few minutes, and the drive back was quick, for we had been lucky, to have seen two tigers on our first safari.

Read more of Shantaram's Ranthamhore trip diary here.

Usha recounts her tiger sighting number 1, as also narrates The jungle experience of a lifetime

I also found these wonderful "tiger" links -

The truth about tigers, is Shekar Dattatri's all you need to know about tigers website. He also has made a documentary on what common urban people can do to help. Unfettered tourism in and around our parks has been blamed as bad for long-term tiger health. I found this essay interesting The tourism conundrum - an insider responds and Travel Operators For Tigers are a group of tour operators looking to be responsible. The Forest Survey of India has a lot of stats on India's forest cover. There are beautiful pictures at Machali - one of Ranthambore's stars.

And please oh please save us from the Chinese tiger farm.

A tiger is a sturdy animal and breeds well, if we let it. How many tigers can India support? How much territory are we willing to give them?

And on a personal level, should I be taking countless jeep rides through the forest? Here's my wish list:

• Each sanctuary/park in India should make it compulsory that every visitor attends an initial orientation, where everyone clearly knows the do's and dont's of forest behaviour, tiger-spotting etiquette, and safe behaviour.
• There should be an upper limit as to number of jeeps allowed per day into the sanctuary.
• There should be strict rules regarding how many vehicles can surround a tiger - dont you think this is both safe and courteous?

What do you think?

There is no point making us sign indemnity bonds (which we did by the way) and then setting us loose inside the forest!