Aditya ‘Dicky’ Singh

Here is an article that I wrote for the Sanctuary magazine:

A few weeks ago, I received a scathing response from a ‘tiger activist’ friend to an article I had posted online about the conservation value of tourism. After blasting my views, he finally stated that what tigers really need is “isolation from the forest department, researchers, scientists, locals, tribals, conservationists, hoteliers and tourists.” While it sounds like the perfect solution to all our problems, we do not live a perfect world. It would be ideal if our biodiversity would be protected for its intrinsic natural value rather than economic benefits but years of petitions and campaigns have still not translated into concrete results, and much of the public is still distanced from conservation. It is high time we consider a broader triple bottom line – market, environment and society. The reality is that tourism is here to stay, whether we like it or not. But the positive aspect of tourism is that it can be made into a winning formula, if we really want it to be, and use it for the advantage of wildlife.

Green bucks
There are few pristine wilderness habitats left in India and the majority of them are surrounded by human habitation. Ranthambhore – a prime tiger reserve – has been described as “an ecological island surrounded by overgrazed pastures and agricultural fields” in the Management Plan of the reserve. Nearly 100 villages surround Ranthambhore National Park and these villagers depend on the park’s resources for their livelihood – fodder for cattle, fuel-wood for their kitchens and minor forest produce for sale. The farmers who own land around the reserve use every possible means to keep wildlife off their fields, including hiring poachers to kill them. The only pro-biodiversity economic activity around Ranthambhore (and most of the Protected Areas in India) is tourism.
Traditionally, the forest department and most conservationists “have seen tourism as a necessary evil with zero conservation value.” Many forest officers and old school conservationists have accused me of the ultimate wildlife crime — of “making money from wildlife.” My answer always remains that I do not make money out of wildlife, — poachers do that. Yes, I make a living but my work supports and sustains the park, its wildlife conservancies, buffer zones and local communities.
Tourism is the only economic activity that values wildlife habitats as ‘economic zones’ and is the only ‘industry’ that pays for biodiverse, standing forests. Tourism is also a very effective anti-poaching unit in many Protected Areas in India, possibly the most effective given the poor track record of patrolling. Consider how few patrolling vehicles we have in most tiger reserves and compare this to the large number of tourist vehicles plying through the tourism zone. Little wonder the tourism zones seem to harbour the highest tiger densities. Dr. Raghu Chundawhat, an imminent tiger scientist, has stated on record that the Tala zone of the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh held a greater density of wild tigers (by far the highest in the world) than he had ever believed possible in such a small area. Of course, the Tala range also happens to support one of the highest tourist densities out of all our tiger reserves.

Tourism, to a large extent, was responsible for the revitalisation of African wildlife. In a developing country like South Africa, wilderness tourism generates US$12 per acre per annum, while agricultural land yields just US$3 per acre. Furthermore its national parks are virtually financed by tourism revenues. Mountain gorillas ‘earn’ $200,000 per annum in permit fees alone Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda, and the indirect revenue is probably 30 times greater. Living Kenyan elephants will help bring in $1,000,000 in tourism revenue in their lifetimes, while a local poacher will earn less than $300 for the value of elephant ivory.
Let’s move to tigers. What is a tiger worth? The tourism zone of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve, which has around 20 tigers, contributes over Rs. one billion – directly and indirectly – to the Indian economy, every year. Of course we have a problem here. Over 40 per cent of this amount never reaches anyone in Ranthambhore and barely three per cent actually goes to the park.
A different kind of wildlife tourism
Sanctuary readers hardly need to be informed that “traditional” wildlife conservation practices in India have failed. This is primarily due to the ‘one size fits all’ approach” of wildlife tourism in our country. Travel Operators for Tigers (TOFT) – a campaign for responsible use of wild habitats in India sums this up well: “There is a growing recognition that tourism presently available within tiger reserves is often of poor quality in terms of facilities, interpretation and guidance, is ‘one species’ (read tiger) centric, often at loggerheads with park, community and tourism officials and offers little support for local communities.”
We – tourism professionals, including myself – are largely responsible for the mess in which wildlife tourism finds itself in India, but it hardly helps that government’s policies too run counter to what effective and sustainable wildlife tourism needs. Considerable blame must also be apportioned to the unfulfilled promises of major tourism ‘players’ including corporates, travel outfits and hotel chains. Most have adopted a “green” language because that is what travelers now want. But value tourism has not been internalised by them. Wildlife tourism must be built on the premise that it should empower locals, increase awareness and contribute to wildlife conservation.

Ranthambhore is an excellent example of what is wrong with wildlife tourism in India. Spread across nearly 300 sq. km. (50 per cent of which is a tourism zone, which supports most of the park’s tigers), Ranthambhore is encircled by almost 100 villages and three small towns. Yet only five villages and two towns have somehow cornered 90 per cent of all the tourism revenue from this destination. A small ‘cartel’ of hotels, local travel agents, suppliers, shop owners and transporters are earning money, the rest get nothing. Why should they support the park?
Yes, tourism provides some employment to locals, these are ridiculously low-paying jobs. There is more. Of the over 100 guides, 80 per cent have little wildlife knowledge or real training. The hotels are all located along on a short strip between Sawai Madhopur town and the sole entry point to the park, thus concentrating tourism benefits to a tiny fragment of the population.
Alternative tourist options such as hiking, birding and camping are discouraged even outside the park. The entry fees to the park are so low as to constitute a mere five per cent of the budget of most tourists. Meanwhile, the national park is woefully short of funds. To add insult to injury, as of now not a rupee from the entry fees goes towards conserving the park, though technically 75 per cent of these fees are labeled ‘eco development surcharge’.
The list of contradictions and problems is endless and could possibly be applied to almost any Protected Areas (PAs) in India. This is why “a dead tiger is worth more to the local villager than a live one.”
The way forward
Julian Mathews founder of the TOFT campaign, suggests that wildlife tourism in India needs to “provide a much more rewarding holiday experience for visitors, raise the quality of life of local communities, and protect the natural environment.”
So how do we achieve this? To make wildlife tourism an effective conservation tool in India we – conservationists, the government and tourism professionals – must change our own archaic thought processes regarding both tourism and conservation. There are no magical solutions but there are a few things that we can do. Almost all PAs have core zones, which are out of bound for tourists and a buffer area where tourism is permitted. The density of wildlife is much higher in the tourism zone and the core area is rarely monitored. Predictably, most wildlife offences including poaching, cattle grazing and woodcutting take place in the core zone, where offenders have a free run. In Ranthambhore, the poaching incidents that took place between 2003 and 2005 only came to light because poachers started targeting tigers in the tourism zone, after they had wiped out tigers from the inaccessible core. Field biologists and forest officers need to work together to come up with a plan that suggests how tourism in core areas can be turned into a monitoring exercise for a few days each month. The revenue generated could pay for 24×7 patrolling, 365 days a year. This does not mean that the core zone be turned into a ‘free for all’ because wild animals do need the solitude that is often denied when noisy vehicles and tourists enter. But surely it is time now for us to work out sensible ‘tourist carrying capacities’ for park? And no, the current carrying capacity analysis is not going to cut it. Often this constitutes a simplistic formula park managers come up with to arrive at figures stipulated by ‘higher ups’. So we accept 90 vehicles a day as the suggested carrying capacity of the Tala range in Bandhavgarh, while this actually exceeds the carrying capacity of the entire Ranthambhore tourism zone, which is three times the size of the Tala range.
We need to get real about wildlife tourism. Visitors are able and willing to pay much more. In some parks, the fee is even lower than the price of bottled water in a mid-range hotel. And there is nothing wrong with charging special-interest tourists including photographers and birdwatchers more for the privilege of longer, (carefully) supervised excursions and permissions to use hides, or guard outposts.
We should explore the idea of developing a tourism buffer within the forest buffer area. In most parks, for instance, agricultural fields begin right where the forest ends, leading to human-wildlife conflict. If hotels in wildlife areas were only permitted to set up facilities in harmony with the land on just two per cent of their land holdings, they could be persuaded to manage the rest of their land holding with the same strict rules that are implemented within the national park. If this were done, within a few short years, we would have a high biodiversity tourism buffer on the periphery of most parks. This would not only add to the forest area but reduce the tourist pressures at today’s over-crowded entry points. And, of course, ‘tourist cash’ would automatically reach locals.
So will we see a situation where degraded wildlife habitats next to PAs are leased out to tourism facilities, rather than to paper mills around Tadoba? Or land ‘developers’ and industrialists around Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Periyar, Bandipur and Keoladeo? I hope so, because if this is not done, I believe the noose around the PA network can only tighten, till it throttles the biodiversity that brings in the tourists.
The forest department controls over one-fifth of India’s total land area and the vast majority of these lands are going from bad to worse. The department lacks the resources to revive and nurture them. Leasing them out on very strict terms for wildlife tourism might just be the most effective, least risky way to revive these degraded forests. In the process, according to Sanctuary, local communities and the forest department itself could legitimately earn a sizeable amount from the carbon trading regimes that are currently not able to do much to actually help counter climate change.
The bottom line? Forest and Tourism Departments, the tourism industry itself and local communities need to recognise the benefits of working together on systems and solutions that restore health to our wildernesses. The economic and the ecological health of our nation will improve, poaching will come down and the more popular parks, which are hotbeds of local conflict, could see a wonderful transformation with locals community leaders and tourism professionals taking on the role of ‘wildlife activists’ in India.

The gentleman who is busy photographing the tiger from the ground (which is strictly forbidden in Indian Tiger Reserves), in the above picture, was the Deputy Director of the Kanha Tiger Reserve in Central India. So much for responsible behaviour.

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It’s been a long time since I posted on the blog. I was on a long vacation and got back to Ranthambhore about 3 weeks ago and since then I have been busy trying to make a living. Yes some of us have to do that. Here are some updates from Ranthambhore:

1. The Park reopened to visitors on the 1st of October after being shut for three moths of monsoons. This year the monsoon rains were spectacular. The best that I have seen and all the waterholes in the park are overflowing. The park is lush green and there should be no major water shortages in the dry summer months.

2. The cubs of the Guda tigress that was found dead in September are still alive and kicking. They have been killing deer fawns and are apparently doing well. A true miracle. They are just about 10 months old – one male and one female – and have been taking care of each other. More about this in a later post.

3. In the Sultanpur area of the park (southern part of the national park) a tigress has given birth to two cubs. They were probably born somewhere in the late summers and have been seen by a number of visitors in the last three weeks.

4. The Forest Department has come out with a new policy to govern tourism, which is a total disaster. This policy is neither good for tourism nor for conservation and has ended up making Ranthambhore the “most visitor unfriendly park in India.” Basically it has made life extremely tough for people like me who make a living out of the visitors who come to see the park.

5. I learnt something really amazing yesterday. The Rajasthan Forest Department has started an “official inquiry” into my blog. A senior Forest Officer who is based in Jaipur is the enquiry officer. Apparently some people took some print out of this blog (mainly of some stuff that I had posted when tiger poaching was at its peak in Ranthambhore – 2004 or so) and sent them as a “complaint” to the Forest Department in Jaipur. The Forest Department, for obvious reason went ballistic and have now launched an enquiry on how I could post such stuff. . What really upset me is that they took three years to know about something that is so public. Just goes to show that no one really reads what I write.

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Yesterday afternoon (1st September 2008) the carcass of a tigress was found in the Guda area, that lies at the southern end of the Ranthambore national park. This tigress was known as the Guda female (see image below) and was over 10 years old – an old age for wild tigers – and had two cubs that would slightly younger than a year in age. The cubs are missing and even as I write this the forest department officials are trying their hardest to find the two cubs.

According to the forest department sources the carcass of this tigress was found in the early afternoon yesterday in a highly decomposed state. She was probably dead for over two days. The forest department officials cremated the body after conducting an autopsy. The autopsy report is yet to be released and probably never will be, at least the likes of me will never see it.

It is being made out by official sources (and the national media has really lapped it up) that she died in a “territorial fight” with another tiger. The Press Trust of India (PTI) newline says “Rise in Tiger population in Rajasthan’s Ranthambore Sanctuary seems to have given rise to “territory wars” among the predators…………………….. the Ranthambore national park, spread over 400 sq km is busting with robust tiger population. As per a 2007 census, the number of stripped animals have increased from 25 in 2005 to 32 last year. The figure excludes cubs, whose number is estimated to be around 14.”

I would like to clarify the following:

1. The Ranthambhore national park is spread over an area of 282 square kilometers and not 400, as PTI (India’s leading new agency claims – come on guys get your facts right).

2. The official census data of 2005 claimed 26 tigers in Ranthambhore and not 25. The real figure at that time was 13 adults and 5 cubs (all below the age of 6 months).

3. The census figures for last year were 32 (released early last year) and this census was the most exhaustive one ever undertaken. This figure of 32 included all the cubs. After these figures were released 8 more cubs were born and two of these (the cubs of the Guda tigress) are missing.

4. The tiger numbers have definitely increased in Ranthambhore, in fact they bounced back from a near calamity. But Ranthambhore is not (by any standard) “busting” with tigers. Ranthambhore national park and the two adjoining areas where the tigers spread to (the Sawai Man Singh sanctuary and the Sawai Madhopur sanctuary” can easily accommodate over 40 adult tigers. This was the number that existed in 2001. Right now there are about 22 (I may be off by 10% plus or minus) adults and that is not “busting” at all.

Rajasthan’s leading regional Hindi newspaper – Rajasthan Patrika – also adds that the forest department is not ruling out death due to poisoning and had sent the viscera for investigation into this angle. This is really interesting.

The area around Guda and further south (outside the national park – where there is little protection for wild life) of it is the beginning of the “Ranthambhore tiger death zone” – I mean that’s where 15 or more tiger have disappeared in the last 4 years. There are a few “forest unfriendly” villages in that area and few large settlements of former hunting gathering tribes (Mogiyas, Bagariyas and Kanjar).
The Guda tigress shares her area with a few villages. Her territory overlaps with that of two male tigers – one is her son from the last litter and the other is the father of her new litter (the two cubs who are missing right now). It is highly unlikely that she was killed in a fight with one of these two tigers. Her present mate would not fight her and her son dare not.

I don’t know how she died but I would bet my cameras (the most precious possession that I have) that it was not because of a territorial fight.

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……….About a year ago the Rajasthan Forest Department declared that they would relocate tigers from Ranthambhore to Sariska to right the wrong. When they fist came out with this plan almost everyone (including me) laughed at it. Most people (not me this time) had declared Sariska as history. A few months after it came out in the news that there were no tigers in Sariska – four of us – Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (Field Biologist of Tiger Watch), Dr. Amit Kotia (a fine botanist), Juhi Chaudhry (the then co-coordinator Kids for Tigers) and I – had gone to Sariska for a few days. At that time the Project Tiger and the Government of Rajasthan were still denying that tiger had been wiped out from Sariska. We had some great wildlife moments there. The habitat was amazing but the tigers were missing. Just a few weeks after we came back they government finally conceded that there were no tiger left in Sariska.

This was a big blow to the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Project Tiger, in fact, to the entire conservation movement in India. But nothing much changed. The budgets, priorities, procedures and staff stayed the same. But a handful of officers of the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Rajasthan police worked their heart out. The protection level went up dramatically. A number of poachers were apprehended and suddenly the poaching community (mainly members of the Mogiya and Bawaria hunting gathering tribes) was on the run. A convicted tiger poacher from Ranthambhore – Devi Singh Mogiya – told us this, on camera.

Dara male - the first tiger to be shifted from Ranthambore to sariska

The Mogiyas and Bawarias are off shoots of the larger Pardhi tribe. The general public opinion is that these people are extremely dangerous, very secretive and totally ruthless. They maybe ruthless for wildlife but they are really scared of any kind authority. They may be secretive but at the local level I was common knowledge that they were poaching big time. It is just that no one really bothered about them, till Sariska happened.

Dara male - the first tiger to be shifted from Ranthambore to sariska

Once the protection level increased tiger numbers in Ranthambore gradually recovered. In May 2005 the Rajasthan State Empowered Committee had declared that there were 26 tigers in Ranthambhore, which was untrue. At that time there were only 18 tigers – 13 adults and 5 cubs. Till a month or so ago there were 23 adults (one of the earlier 18 – Yuvraj - a young male was killed by Mogiyas somewhere in the end of November and six newer cubs had grown up), 6 sub adults and 8 young cubs. I could be wrong here by one or two but that would be about it.

There were recent media reports that the forest authorities had sighted 14 cubs (below the age of 4 months) during the hot summer months of 2008. This was hogwash. There are right now 8 cubs (in four different families) and not 14. And out of these 8 only 4 had been positively till the end of May. I don’t know how this figure of 14 came up. Anyways these figures are not really important. What is more relevant is that the population is on the recovery mode. Ranthambhore is not overflowing with tigers (as it is made out to be) but it is definitely on a rapid recovery mode.

By the beginning of this year the relocation plan became very serious. A lot of our “cocktail party” conservationists were dead against the plan. A few (that included me) were skeptical about it (in fact till a month ago I use to think that the Forest Department may not finally have the nerve to pull it off) but were not against it in principle. This was the only idea if Sariska had to be revived as a tiger reserve. The habitat and prey was there in Sariska but the tiger was missing. The experiment had to be tried out, even if it failed.

I have not been to Sariska in the last 6 months but the news that I was getting was that a few, actually five, enclosures – where the tigers would be released as soon as they reach Sariska. Once the tigers get over their “trauma” of the journey, they would be released.

Bachhi - the first tigress to be shfted to Sariska from ranthambore

By the second week of May most parts of the park were closed for tourists. The only part that was left open was the area of the lakes and the part from the lakes to a forest guard post called Guda (towards the southern end of the Ranthambore national park). The tourists were not complaining because this is one of the most popular part of the national park. Monitoring of tigers in the closed part of the park was intensified and some tigers were short listed for relocation. By the middle of June a few of the shortlisted tigers were radio collared, besides the three that had been radio collared some months ago.

Bachhi - the first tigress to be shfted to Sariska from ranthambore

The tigers that were shortlisted were young tigers that had separated from their mothers about a year or so ago. A tiger of that age group would have just about established (particularly females) their territories in Ranthambhore but would not have been totally entrenched there. To move even one tiger, four or five would have to be identified so that they would be able to surely find one of them to tranquilize a few hours before they were to be air lifted.

The plan was to make a stopgap helipad inside the Ranthambore national park, where an Indian air force helicopter could land. Experts from the Wildlife Institute of India would tranquilize one of the identified tigers, put them in a covered cage, load this cage on the helicopter and fly them to Sariska, where they would be released inside the enclosures. Sounds easy but it is very difficult to pull off.
In late 2007, three tigers were radio collared in Ranthambore for monitoring purpose. When this was done, we suddenly realized that the Forest Department was serious about shifting tigers to Sariska. One of these three tigers – a male that is slightly over 3 years old and is known as the Darra male or T 10 – was the first tiger that was the first tiger to be relocated to Sariska. The helicopter arrived in Ranthambhore on the evening of the 28th of June. The idea was to relocate the first (of the five – 2 males and 3 females) tiger on the morning of the 29th. It almost did not work out because it was raining heavily on the 29th morning. The tiger (Darra male) was located and the entire forest team was waiting for the rains to stop. Slightly after 1000 hours or so the rain stopped, the tiger was tranquilized, put in the cage and airlifted. It was real touch and go. The tiger recovered from the tranquilizing dose in midair but was still too dazed to move around. They managed to land him in Sariska and move the cage to one of the enclosures. The top brass of Rajasthan Forest Department was in the helicopter with the tiger.

A forest officer told me that the moment they opened the gate of the cage, the tiger almost charged out of it and hid behind some bushes in the enclosure. They had left a bait for him in the enclosure, which he killed a few hours after being released but did not eat till much later.

On the 6th of July a tigress, known here as Bachhi (or daughter – because she is the daughter of a Ranthambhore most famous tigress – Machali – from the last litter) was similarly moved. This time the entire operation went like clockwork. Bachhi was my favorite, an absolute beauty, and I have some amazing pictures of her. What was interesting is that these two were territorial neighbors and had mated about a month ago. Both of them are still very young so the mating may not be fruitful but they would be surely recognizing each other’s scent. A day after Bachhi reached Sariska, the Darra male was released from his enclosure. He is now free to establish his domain. The forest department has been cleared the first big hurdle but there is still a big hill to climb. I am sure they will climb it.
In the map pasted below Bachhi’s territory is marked in red, while the Darra male’s territory is marked out in black. Hope they do well.

Map of Ranthambore

Hats off to officers like R N Mehrotra (Chief Wildlife Warden, Rajasthan), R S Shekhawat (Deputy Field Director, Ranthambhore national park), R S Somashekhar (DFO Sariska) and their supporting staff. You pulled out the first two rabbits out of the hat. Congrats.

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About an hour ago I checked my mail and got a shock. There was this comment on my last post (Shooting with Andy Rouse) from Anubhav, who I presume is a person of Indian origin living in the USA. It goes something like this (for those who are too lazy to read the entire comment).

Hello Aditya,
Nice to know about your nature photography 101. Reading your blog for the past 1 year. I have come to expect a lot of the serious stuff plaguing the park like what were your observations on Sariska translocation? How is the dam doing? Did you find takers for cash pooling? Are the poaching tribes still on the fringes?
May I politely suggest that please keep your post like you kept them earlier i.e. mainstream pressing issues get the lime light……..Keep justifying your name– THE SUN– and give life to Ranthambhore.

I began replying to him ………………………………

Dear Anubhav,
I though there was just an overkill of “serious” tiger news in the media and on the net for the last few months. :)…………..Almost everyone in India has overnight become an expert…… and is working to save the tigers. Just got bored of serious stuff and taking a break from it. That is one of the reasons I have not been posting much for the last 4 months or so.

There were two thoughts going through my head. One, I did not know that people actually “read” my blog. And two, I did not know that people take me seriously (my wife does not). And then I decided to blog it. Seriously.

Tigress with young cubs in ranthambore

Sariska Tiger Reserve was one of the original “nine” wildlife sanctuaries that were taken up under the Project Tiger in 1973. It was an excellent tiger habitat (still is) but due to poor protection the number of tigers there started dwindling in the middle 1990s. Somewhere in the later half of 2004, tiger disappeared from Sariska, shot dead by commercial poachers. Most of us (including the Project Tiger directorate in Delhi) came to know about it, when a friend of mine – Jay Mazumdar – wrote about it in a national daily newspaper called the Indian Express. I have an earlier post about it.

Soon after that there was a big media outcry about tigers. For almost a year before “Sariska Zero” became news there were reports of tiger crisis coming from almost all over India and Corbett tiger reserve was probably the only Project Tiger Reserve that stayed crisis free. Suddenly everyone became with access to media became tiger experts and lot of wildlife conservationists woke up from their sleep. And all this happened over night. There was no crisis till the day before Indian Express exposed Sariska zero. What followed became wildlife history in India. We heard stuff like “Rajasthan does not deserve tigers”, “hang the managers of these reserves” etc. But nothing changed at the ground level (I mean at the various Project Tiger Reserve level).

Tigress shifted to Sariska

Of course no such hanging took place. A few Forest guards in Sariska were suspended, a few committees and Task Forces were formed and they published their reports. The Government of India and Rajasthan ended up with egg on their face and Project Tiger got really bad press publicity. A lot of “tiger lovers” and “wildlife conservationists” – both professional and amateur – got all excited and tried to get their “15 seconds of fame” and some got much more than that. Everyone declared Sariska a “basket case.”

Does Rajasthan deserve its tigers? Tough question to answer. I think India does not deserve its tigers. But we have to remember that tiger are not just our national heritage, they are our planet’s heritage. And I don’t think we, Indians, deserve to be the guardian of this global treasure. Why? Because despite such a big outcry nothing really happened. We were very happy shouting and cursing the Forest Department but we just plain refused to really correct the situation. A few very superficial measures were undertaken and we were happy. The conservationists declared that the crisis was over and “good news” started pouring from all over. We started hearing things like “massive budgetary outlay for tiger protection from now on, army commandos deployed in tiger reserves, tiger reserves have been sealed and declared inviolate” and so on. No such thing happened at the ground level. The budgets did go up – from pathetically low to very low, army commandos were actually retired army personnel who had no understanding of wildlife, Wildlife issues rose from lowest priority for the government to very low priority. Basically nothing changed at the ground level.

There was some genuine good news. Ranthambhore, which had almost got decimated, revived but that was mainly because a few officers and officials worked their heart out. Corbett was another good news – again thanks to a handful of officers and officials. There was no change in the outlook of the Government of India, except for some very slick media management. And most of the media lapped it up. There were a few sane voices in the media – journalists like Bittu Sehgal – the editor of Sanctuary magazine, Jay Mazoomdaar, Prerna Singh Bindra and a few more but their voices were partially drowned out in the din.

About a year ago the Rajasthan Forest Department declared that they would relocate tigers from Ranthambhore to Sariska to right the wrong……….

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We finally got all the work in Indala finished and did it just in time. The monsoons have arrived here and the rains make most of the tracks to Indala impassable. All the three wells were dug some time ago, the waterholes are ready, the water recharging structures done and the Deputy Field Director has posted two guards (who stay in tents) near each of the waterholes. All sorts of wildlife have already started using these waterholes. When Andy Rouse, Salim Ali (India’s best tiger driver – if you know what I mean) and I had gone there to take a few pictures, we found fresh pugmarks of a male tiger in the first waterhole and pugmarks of a tigress with three cubs close by. We could only photograph the first well because it was getting dark by the time we finished with that one and we had to get out of the park (which takes nearly 2 hours).

I would like to thank Paresh Upadhyaya (USA), Jayananda Govindaraj (Chennai), Ratnabh Bannerjee (New Delhi), Nitin Mistry (Goa), Hitesh Chug (New Delhi) and Andy Rouse (UK) and the clothing company “Paramo “ that sponsors his conservation work. Andy / Paramo and I each picked up about 35% of the bill while the others contributed towards the balance 30%. I still have about Rupees 35,000 left with me.

The Deputy Field Director and I discussed ways to spend this amount and we came out with a good one. There is an old lake in Indala, very close to the Indala village, which is going to be relocated outside the park very soon. This lake was made about 70 years ago by damming a non-perennial stream. About 10 years ago the dam broke and since then the lake died out. We have decided to fix the dam and to strengthen the banks of this lake. We have Rs 35,000 to do this but it is going to cost about Rs 200,000 to complete, which we will somehow manage. We had started work on the lake a few days ago but it rained a day after that and it may now be tough to complete the work. In that case we will take it up in one of the dry spells that we get in the monsoons. If we can manage that then we will have a full-fledged lake in Indala plateau when the National Park reopens in October after the monsoons.

The waterholes are ready…….

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In my last post I had written about digging of wells and making waterholes in the Indala plateau. We just finished digging the third well and have got three water holes going already. The three wells were dug near non-perennial streams and in places where there were “small wells” (locally known as kui) on such streams. This was done to maximize the recharging of the wells after every rain. All the three kui that existed on these three different locations were in total ruins and the new wells were dug right next to the older ruined kui. We probably could have fixed these older kuis but we did not even give it thought because the cost of doing that would have been much more than the cost of digging newer wells.

The three wells are located in Dev ki kui, Gular ki kui and Pathar or Baba ki kui. They are about three to four kilometers apart from each other. Gular ki kui is about 4 kilometers away from Indala village (one of the four villages that exist inside the Ranthambhore national park). We got lucky with Dev ki kui and Baba ki kui. These wells struck good permanent underground water streams at 21 and 29 feet respectively. The well at Gular ki kui struck water at 40 feet but this water is just about enough to sustain one waterhole.

The total cost of digging 90 feet of well was Rupees 360,000. We have paid the contractor Dhanroop Maali a sum of Rupess 240,000 and the rest I am going to pay him in a day or two. I would like to thank three of my close friends who pitched in with the money. They are Jayanand Govindraj (from Chennai – Rupees 50,000), Neha and Hitesh (from Delhi – Rupees 25,000) and Nitin “Silky” Mistry (from Goa – Rupees 20,000). Cheers guys –this may be the only credit that you will get. No - I am just joking – you will get much more than that. And none of them paid in “dollars” (see the 8th comment in my last post to know what I mean).

Getting the first waterhole going near all the three wells was easy – all the three areas had “natural” rocky waterholes close by that are being filled by the water from the wells. The waterhole at Dev ki kui (see picture below) is pretty amazing. I saw about 20 Sambar der drinking there at one time, late in the evening. The Forest Department staff and the guys working at the wells have been reporting regular tiger sightings. And these were areas where tiger were almost never seen after December or so, when the last waterholes dried out.

There is some work to be done still. Like making a few very basic water recharging structures and a few more waterholes. This is time consuming but relatively inexpensive work.

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For the last two years the tiger numbers in Ranthambhore National Park have been going up and soon there will be more tigers than the park can accommodate. A few sub adult tigers are already drifting out of the park, where the protection levels are not as high as they are in the Park. Recently a male sub adult was killed outside the boundary of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve. One short-term solution for increasing the number of tigers in Ranthambhore is to improve the habitat within the Reserve so that more tigers can establish their territories inside the Reserve.

The Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve consists of the following Protected Areas:
1. Ranthambhore National Park.
2. Sawai Madhopur Sanctuary.
3. Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary.
4. Kela Devi Sanctuary.
5. Certain other Forested Areas.

Out of the entire Tiger Reserve, the National Park constitutes only about 22% of the area of the Reserve and tigers are found only with the boundaries of the National Park and the Sawai Madhopur Sanctuary. A few tigers do stray to Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary and to the southeastern fringe of the Kela Devi Sanctuary but they do not establish their territories in these areas. For the last few years the officials of the Ranthambhore Tiger Project (Core Division) have been making great efforts to improve the habitat with the Reserve. As a result areas such as Balas and Chidi Kho in Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary, Kundal in Sawai Madhopur Sanctuary and Ghateshwar in Kela Devi Sanctuary have been added as potential tiger habitat.

Indala ki Dang

Within the Ranthambhore national Park there are areas that are right now not suitable tiger habitats. The three essentials that make a tiger habitat are vegetation cover (wooded areas and ground cover), presence of prey species in sufficient numbers and the presence of permanent waterholes. Most of the areas that are not suitable as tiger habitats with in the National Park are devoid of permanent Water holes. One such area is the Indala ki Dang (highlighted in the map above).

Indala ki Dang (or Indala plateau) has an area of almost 90 square kilometers, which is almost 30% of the area of the National Park. There is a small village called Indala at the southern edge of this plateau. Till a few years ago this plateau was seriously over grazed and there was little or no ground cover. Grazers from the villages that lie along the southern and eastern edge of the Park used to graze their cattle in this plateau. There was very little woodcutting in the area because the villages were too far to carry wood. As a result while there was no ground cover there were enough trees in the plateau. Due to the loss of ground cover the plateau could not retain much rainwater and barely a month after the end of monsoons almost all the water holes in the plateau used to dry out. In the last few years the Forest Department managed to drastically reduce the grazing pressure in the plateau and gradually the under growth regenerated. (see picture below)

On the 24th of December 2007 I visited the Indala ki dang, after a gap of three years, with the Deputy Field Director of Ranthambhore National Park and I was pleasantly surprised. The plateau had almost totally regenerated and was now in a shape to support tigers. There were enough wooded areas, undergrowth and prey species. The only thing that was lacking was permanent water holes. We found evidence (pugmarks and scat) of the presence of 7 different tigers. The feedback from the Forest Guards who are manning the different Forest Chowkis in Indala was that there is a lot of tiger movement in the area, however very few tigers stay permanently in the plateau and this is mainly due to the absence of permanent water holes in the area.

The natural water sources that existed in the plateau were almost totally destroyed due to cattle grazing and these may take a long time to recover. The Deputy Field Director is of the opinion that this plateau, along with its neighboring areas, has the potential to accommodate between 8 and 10 tigers and that most of the cubs and sub adult tigers of Lahpur valley, Sakri valley and Thumka valley could establish their territories in Indala, provided there were enough water sources in the area. He plans to dig 5 wells in the plateau in strategic locations and use each one of these wells to support two water holes. The cost of digging each well is about Rs. 125,000 and the cost of creating two water holes (for each well) would be a further Rs. 50,000.

The Deputy Field Director is looking for all the financial help that he can get to provide permanent water sources on Indala so that tigers form their permanent territories in the plateau and not just use it as a transitional zone. We, the people at The Ranthambhore Bagh have committed to provide the funds required for one well and two water holes that will go with this one well and work has already started. We are looking for partners who can help us dig the other 4 wells. We feel that if a mere Rs. 1,000,000 can add an area of almost 90 square kilometers of tiger habitat to the Ranthambhore National Park; it is a very small price to pay.

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If you had visited Ranthambhore in 2006 for a few days you, chances are you would have seen the Guda tigress with her two male cubs. This highly visible family had delighted a large number of tourists with their easy sightings. One of these two males, now fully grown, called Yuvraj, was killed by poachers a month or so ago. He was killed near a place called Lakheri, which is about 30 kilometers from the edge of the Ranthambhore National park, by a group of 7 “mogiya” tribal poachers. The Forest Department arrested one of these 7 poachers about 10 days ago and they made this news public yesterday. This man –goes by two names (as many Mogiyas do) - Ramswaroop Mogiya or Sanwarmal Mogiya. He is a resident of a small village near Lakheri, where many Mogiyas stay. And believe me, the Mogiyas of Lakeri area are no friends of wildlife.

Yuvraj’s brother, who is known in Ranthambhore as the “Collared male” because of the radio collar that has been fitted on his neck by the Forest Department. He was the only tiger in Ranthambhore to be radio-collared till a few days ago, when two more were radio collared.

These two male cubs were born during the monsoon months of 2004, in an area called Guda at the southern edge of Ranthambhore national park. Guda lies at the heart of the territory of their mother, who is known as the Guda tigress. When these cubs were small they were very shy, as most cubs are. We only got to see them during the onset of summers of 2005. Before that there sightings were rare. When they were about a year old they got used to vehicles and their sightings became very frequent. In fact between summers of 2005 to the end of winters in 2006 (when the two cubs finally separated from their mother), we started calling Guda a zoo because it was so easy to find this family.

There was a TV crew staying with us in June 2005. They had come to shoot tigers for NBS, which is one of Japan’s largest TV channels. Salim (Ranthambhore’s best guide) and I were assisting this crew. All through June we had some great times with this family. We saw them interacting as a family, playing in water, play fighting with each other and even making a kill.

At that time there was a male tiger called “Jhumroo” (see picture above) who took over as the dominant male of an area called Lahpur, that lies close to Guda. Jhumroo was not the father of these cubs and so posed a serious threat to the two cubs. However, their mother was older than Jhumroo and always managed to keep Jhumroo from encroaching into her territory. We once found the Guda tigress and her two cubs sitting in a waterhole at a place called Nagdi. After a few minutes the two cubs just got up without a warning and ran away from us, while the mother started snarling at us. Soon she got up from the water and charged in our direction (see picture below).

She went right past our jeep and straight into the bushes behind our jeep. We heard another tiger in these bushes and almost immediately there was fight (that we could hear but not see). A few minutes later the mother came out of the bushes and walked rapidly to where the cubs were hiding. And just a few minutes after that we saw Jhumroo coming out and walking back towards Guda, with a slight limp and a big dent to his ego (see picture below).

By the end of winter of 2006 the two cubs had separated from their mother. Initially they stayed together in an area called Phoota Kot for a few weeks. I once saw Yuvraj and his brother (see picture below) trying to hunt Sambar deer together, without much success. This was a difficult time for the two brothers because they had not mature as hunters and the other dominant males of the area, mainly Jhumroo and a male that we call the X male, would not let them establish their territories easily. Soon Yuvraj drifted out of the national park to the Man Singh Sanctuary, while his brother established his territory in the Soleshewar – Dumduma – Sultanpur area, where he is still seen often. To be fair to the officers of Ranthambhore national park, they did keep excellent track of Yuvraj. In fact they had a team of trackers constantly following his trail. After spending a few months in Man Singh Sanctuary, where he was reasonably well protected, he once strayed right out to Ramgarh Sanctuary in Bundi district. He was in dangerous territory now because there is very little protection in Bundi and the place is full of poachers. On that occasion the Forest officials of Ranthambhore managed to somehow get him back to Man Singh Sanctuary. Don’t ask me how they did this but they did manage it after a lot of effort.

In the end of October 2007 he once again drifted back from Man Singh anctuary and never returned. We heard that he had killed a cow near Lakheri. Some trackers from the Forest Department were rushed to the place where he had killed the cow but they could not locate him. After that there was no news of Yuvraj, despite the fact that a whole load of forest guards, volunteers etc were looking for him. About 10 days ago a Mogiya was caught by the Forest Department acting on a tip off and he confessed that he was part of the 8 persons who killed Yuvraj.

What hurts me the most is that the Guda tigress managed to save her cubs from the poachers when tiger poaching in Ranthambhore was at its peak. This male survived the worst time that Ranthambhore had seen in the last decade or so but was poached when tiger poaching in Ranthambhore is under control.

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For the last few weeks there is this big debate going on in India between tiger conservationists and tribal activists. The more notable one worth reading are by Pankaj Sekhsaria of Kalpavriksh and Sunita Narain of Centre for Science and Environment. The problem with tiger conservation is that it is much more complicated that it appears at first. There are too many factors involved. Besides there are more experts than wild tigers, many more. And since research on tigers is actively discouraged all these so called tiger experts (including dodos like me) have no scientific ground to stand on.

Some facts:

• Right now tigers exist only in the most “economically” remote area of India.

• Typically these are places with the people have the lowest socio-economic index, relatively lower population density than rest of India but are areas rich in natural resources.

• Over half these areas (specially in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh etc) have huge political problems (eg naxalites etc).

• The law and order situation is generally speaking very poor in all these areas.

• Tigers exist in such areas because the population around did not kill them. This is a very important and most of us when talking about tiger conservation tend to ignore this.

As Dr. Ulhas Karanth rightly says destruction of habitat and prey is the most severe threat that tigers have been facing for the last century or so. This is what will ultimately get them. Poaching gets to be a threat only when the tiger numbers are so low that they were almost unviable. For instance all of us say that poachers killed 18 tigers in Sariska in one year and as a result all the tigers in Sariska were wiped out. Wrong. There were never more than 4 or 5 tigers in Sariska since the year 2000. By 2004 (the year when poachers wiped out tigers in Sariska) there were probably no ore than 2 or 3 tigers in Sariska.

In reserves like Simlipal killing of prey (for the tiger) species like deer, antelopes, wild pigs etc is widely accepted. Part of the reason for this is that bush meat has always been an important dietary supplement for the local population. Till about 50 to 60 years ago this did not make much of a difference to the forests health because the local population was very low and there was a lot of wildlife around Simlipal. With improvement in medical facilities the local population boomed. Which created more and more strain on the local resources including wildlife. This has now reached a crisis point .

Wild tigers are a huge source of revenue for India. I would estimate that they contribute something over Rs 15,000,000,000 per annum to the Indian economy just through tourism to 12 to 13 of the popular tiger reserves. This the turn over of airlines, transport companies, tour operators, Destination Management Companies, Accommodation providers, local Excursion agents, Shop keepers and various other service providers. This is a huge sum and small parts of it can finance conservation activities in the entire country. Besides this, there is a huge sum that comes through charities, NGOs etc. The problem with this huge sum is that the local villagers who live around the reserves do not get to see most of this money. For them life is barely above (or in most cases - below) subsistence level. Most of them feel that this is the price that they have to pay for not killing the forest around their home and to an extent they are correct.

In the long run tigers will survive only if a large chunk of the people who live around tiger reserves make a living out of the forests around them. Why should they be excluded from this pie?

The debate goes on and on and on. If you find someone who is genuinely interested in tiger conservation, do let me know.

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