Aditya ‘Dicky’ Singh

The Project Tiger had a very successful run from its inception to the late 1980s. However, after the heady early year, when the Project Tiger was a great success and it was clear that the tiger population was recovering, the project fell into widespread complacency until, in the early 1990s, tigers disappeared in the famous Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve. A raid on a Tibetan house in Delhi uncovered 400 kg of tiger bones (possibly from some 30 tigers) ready for despatch to China for medicinal use. That provoked the “second crisis”.

In the initial years of the Project Tiger, a handful of very dedicated and knowledgeable officers headed the project. These included people like Mr. Kailash Sankhla (the First Director of the Project), Mr. Billy Arjun Singh, Mr. Fateh Singh Rathore etc. The Project also had the full backing of the Central Government. Mrs. Indira Gandhi - the then Prime Minister of India - took a keen personal interest in the Project.

One of the male tigers that went “missing” from Ranthambhore between 2003 and 2005

Role of the Prime Minister
In the early days of the Project Tiger, Mrs Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, took a very keen personal interest in the Project. At that time the Congress party, which she headed ruled at the centre and almost all the states. One of the biggest help that the Project got from her was that she ensured that there was no political interference with the Project. As a result the managers of the Project had a free hand and faced almost no political resistance from the local politicians. After her demise in 1984, her son Mr. Rajiv Gandhi also showed some con-cern for the Project but the Project Tiger did not receive the same political backing as it had earlier.

Demand for Tiger Parts in east Asia
By the mid 1980s the Project Tiger got mired in red tape and widespread complacency and as a result it lost its direction. At the same time the habitat loss for tiger continued unabated. The final straw for the tigers was that a huge demand for tiger parts arose in East Asia - particularly in China and Taiwan. At the same time the South China Tiger, that was shot by the thousands as a pest under a P.R.C.government sponsored program in the 1950s and 1960s (Laurie 1989), was on the brink of extinction; less than 50 individuals survived. As the name implies, it is na-tive to China, the major consuming market for tiger bones. Since the demand for tiger bones and other parts could not be full filled by the tiger populations of East and South-East Asia, the traders turned their attention to the tiger population of India.

One of the male tigers that went “missing” from Ranthambhore between 2003 and 2005

Consuming nations and trade networks
The demand for tiger bones, used in traditional Chinese medicine and as an ingredient in ton-ics, was clearly the driving force behind increased poaching from the late 1980s. In some cases, poachers have taken only bones and genitals, leaving once-valuable skins behind (Dr. S.K. Dhungel, pers. comm. 1992). Skins are easily identifiable but tiger bones can pass for pigs, cat-tle or other livestock and non-endangered species. The major consuming nations of tiger bones and other derivatives still are China, South Korea and Taiwan. Although comprehensive statistics on trade are not available, an emerging picture showed these nations are unquestionably the end consumers for tiger (and other cats) bones and derivatives. The extremely high demand, combined with virtually non-existent enforce-ment of both international and domestic protection laws in consumer nations, made the tiger’s survival into the next century doubtful. Four of the five extant tiger subspecies once roamed China in the tens of thousands. Today only a handful survive and the South China Tiger, found only in China, is on the verge of ex-tinction because of government bounties offered for skins in the 1950s and 1960s. Between 1951-1955 an average of 400 skins were taken yearly (Laurie 1989).

Having exhausted their own supply of tigers, Chinese traders branched out and it seemed most roads in the trade lead to China. In 1988, twenty sacks of bones were confiscated at a Nepal Post Office near the Tibet border (Martin 1992a); and in 1991, five poachers, believed to be responsible for the deaths of three tigers in Nepal, were arrested for possessing bones from a tiger which had been poisoned (Anon. 1991a). In both cases, the bones were bound for China. Bones from tigers killed in In-dia and Nepal are said to move through Tibet into China via mail, rail or overland (Dr. S. K. Dhungel, pers. comm. 1992). Taiwan and South Korea also imported large amounts of bones over the past decade. A few examples: TRAFFIC Japan reports that between 1985-1990, South Korea imported 1,700 kg of tiger bones, possibly representing the deaths of over 50 Tigers. Twelve years ago, TRAFFIC International cited an article in “Taiwan Trade Trends,” which reported that one Taiwanese brewery alone was importing 2,000 kg of tiger bones yearly, representing the deaths of be-tween 100-200 tigers each year, to make 100,000 bottles of Tiger Bone Wine (Jackson 1991). Bones from Siberian Tigers were easily moved into not only China (Sievers 1992) but also North and South Korea. Besides Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, cambodia and laos were also “illegal importers” of tiger parts. The use of of animal parts in Chinese medicine stems from the belief that substances found in animal products are similar to those found in our own bodies. Therefore, the potency of a sub-stance found in an animal drug will be many times more potent than that of a plant compound.

One of the male tigers that went “missing” from Ranthambhore between 2003 and 2005

Ranthambhore and the Second Tiger Crisis
From the middle of 1980s to the end of 1980s, Ranthambhore was rated as one of the best places in the world to see wild tigers. However, in 1990, after the park reopened for tourists (post monsoons) it became clear to regular visitors that the number of tigers in Ranthambhore had definitely declined.

The end of 1980s was probably the best time for tigers in Ranthambhore. There were over 40 of them – which was amazingly high density for a park that is less than 400 square kilometers. People were coming from all over the world to see tigers. At that time Ranthambhore was definitely the best place in the word to see tigers.
During the end of 1980s the management of the park went to the pits. The problem with man-agement of all protected areas in India is that a lot depends on the quality of the top officers in charge. If they are good the park does very well but if they are incompetent the park can liter-ally be destroyed in a few years. That’s is just want happened to Ranthambhore in the end of 1980s. The officers who were in charge at the highest level were totally incompetent. They ignored all the warning signs that were there for all to see.

One of the male tigers that went “missing” from Ranthambhore between 2003 and 2005

Since the beginning of 1989 the drivers of the jeeps that took tourists around the park had been reporting that the sightings of tigers were going down. The park authorities initially ig-nored these warnings and later on they started prosecuting the drivers who gave them such re-ports. By the beginning of 1990 it became obvious to all but the authorities that tigers were disappearing.

It was the people who were involved in tourism in Ranthambhore who first reported that many commonly seen tigers were missing. The local park authorities tried their best to stem such reports but it was an impossible task. At that time Ranthambhore was a favored destina-tion for photographers and since the best was to identify tiger is the stripe patterns - it became impossible for the park authorities to explain how a lot of commonly seen and frequently pho-tographed tigers were “missing”.

By that time the whole situation had blown up and Ranthambhore became infamous all over the world. The state government instead of actively going after the poaching network took a series of measures that were ridiculous. They set up a one-man committee called the “Kumat committee”, named after the only member retired Justice Kumat. He suggested a series of measures that did not help the tigers in the least and some of these are still a burden for the tigers of Ranthambhore.
When the forest department were unsuccessful in containing the news that tigers were miss-ing, they started denying that their was a problem. In 1991 one man was arrested by the local police in the Sawai Madhopur railway station (the closest rail head from Ranthambhore) with a tiger skin and a sack full of bones. When he was interrogated he admitted to have killed more than half a dozen tigers in the last few months. This blew the lid off the tiger poaching and the media highlighted the entire issue. This is how the second tiger crisis became public. There was a huge out cry all over the world and the Project Tiger was forced to take remedial steps.

One of the male tigers that went “missing” from Ranthambhore between 2003 and 2005

Project Tiger after the Second crisis
After the second tiger crisis the Government took the following steps to revamp the Project Tiger set up:
1. Setting up the Subramanium Committee to look into the issue of prevention of il-legal trade in wildlife and wildlife products. The recommendations of this Committee are, however, yet to be enforced.
2. Setting up the J.J.Dutta Committee to review the management of the tiger project and suggest the future course of action.
3. Organising training of various enforcement agencies in the Wildlife Institute of In-dia for species conservation.
4. Organising an enforcement training workshop in New Delhi, with the help of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and CITES for the enforcement agencies like Customs, Revenue Intelligence, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Coast Gaurds, Border Security Force, State Police, Deputy Directors of Wildlife Preservation and Scientific Organisation like BSI and ZSI.
5. Setting up of a National Coordination Committee for the control of poaching and illegal trade in wildlife with enforcement agencies mentioned above as well as the Army, the Postal Department and so on.
6. The eco-development programme has been taken up around the major protected areas for winning over the support of the fringe dwellers to the cause of wildlife conservation including tiger under national schemes.
7. Initiating India’s Eco-development Project under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in seven protected areas which include seven prime tiger habitats (five tiger reserves).
8. Launching of a public awareness programme to involve NGOs and others for sup-porting the government in its efforts at tiger conservation.
9. Supporting programmes of some institutions and NGOs in exploring tiger trade routes and developing a forensic identification reference manual for tiger parts and products.
10. Taking initiatives with the Government of Nepal and Government of China to evolve an effective strategy to control trafficking of tiger products across international borders.

The Project Tiger Directorate also decided to increase the area under the Project Tiger Re-serves and the Central Government dramatically increased the annual plan budget for the pro-ject. These steps had the desired effect and gradually the tiger population again started increas-ing.

There was also a massive international campaign against the use of tiger parts in traditional medicine and as a result the nations that were earlier freely “importing” tiger parts had to take steps to crub this.

One of the male tigers that went “missing” from Ranthambhore between 2003 and 2005

Ranthambhore after the second crisis
After the disaster of 1990 – 91, Ranthambhore went through a phase of recovery that took over a decade. According to the State government after the poaching of 1990 – 91 there were 16 tigers left in the park. However, the reality was that there were barely 10 tigers left. Some people who have been living here for a long time think that the figure of 10 was too optimistic.

It is not clear how many tiger were left but one mature female and one mature male were surely left alive because in the early 1993 this female gave birth to four female cubs. Most of the present day tigers of Ranthambhore are decedents of this tigress. This family lorded over the entire park and that was a very prominent indicator that there were not many tigers left in the park. Tigers are highly territorial and they actively defend their territories from invasion by other tigers. Tigresses with cubs almost never stray out of their territories with their cubs. So if one tigress was moving around a very large part of the park with her cubs, it indicated that no other tiger had their territory in this part.

Thankfully for Ranthambhore all the four cubs of this litter survived. By 1995 the cubs were fully grown up and had separated from their mother. These four cubs established their inde-pendent territories in Kachida, Bhakola, Lake area and Lahpur respectively. All these five tigers – the mother and her four cubs are now no more. The cub that established her territory in Bhakola never had a litter but the other three bred successfully and repopulated the park.

With a high degree of protection, that the Park got from 1993 to 2003 the park soon bounced back. Tiger numbers went up to over 40 by the time he left Ranthambhore in 2003.

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It is estimated that there were nearly 40,000 tigers in the wild in India in 1900. Even if we consider this to be a slight exaggeration there were still a lot of tigers in India at that time. Today, according to the Government there are 3500 tigers but in reality there are less than 2000 left in the wild in India.

The population of India grew dramatically after 1920s, mainly due to improved medical facilities. Just after independence, the leaders in India were under tremendous pressure to increase the amount of land available for agriculture. This was not just because of the dramatic increase in population but also because migrants from East and West Pakistan were demanding land for settlement. The only land that was readily available at that time were prime forests, which were ideal tiger habitat. From the early 1940s to late 1960s large tracts of prime forests were cleared for making more land available for agriculture, dams etc. At that time the nations priorities were definitely not tigers. Forests then were seen as an important economical resource which could be mercilessly harvested in an unsustainable manner. The focus was on getting more land for “development”.

Besides, hunting, which was perfectly legal at that time, was also taking a huge toll on the mega fauna in forests that were not cleared for “development”. Before independence, hunting was mainly the preserve of the royalty and the well heeled. In fact, almost every royal house had protected their own private reserves for hunting and outsiders were not permitted to hunt in such reserves. Most of the present day tiger reserves were the erstwhile hunting reserves of older day royalty.

After India gained independence and the royal houses declined in stature all this changed. Hunting had become “fashionable” and a large number of “Shikar companies” came into existence. Such companies used to facilitate hunting for a handsome fee and both rich Indians and foreigners flocked to prime forests to shoot mega fauna. Tigers were the biggest prize and the government welcomed the revenue that it brought, particularly the foreign exchange.

The First Tiger Crisis

The “first crisis” was in the end of 1960s. At that time the Government of India in collaboration with the the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and now known as World Wide Fund for natureWWF carried out a nation wide census of tigers and reached a conclusion that there were only about 1800 tigers left in India and if something was not done immediately they would be extinct very soon. As a result of this crisis situation, the Project Tiger was born. The Government passed the Wildlife Conservation Act in 1972 and constituted the Project Tiger. The same year hunting was banned in India. Initially, nine forest reserves were selected for special treatment and designated as “Project Tiger Reserves.” This tiger crisis was a result of “shikar” (hunting by well healed people for “fun”) and dramatic loss of forest habitat.

Launch of Project Tiger

Project Tiger, launched in 1973-74, is one of our most successful conservation ventures in the recent times. The project aims at tiger conservation in specially constituted ‘tiger reserves’, which are representative of various bio-geographical regions falling within our country. It strives to maintain a viable tiger population in the natural environment.

An estimate of the tiger population in India, at the turn of the century, placed the figure at 40,000. Subsequently, the first ever all India tiger census was conducted in 1972 which revealed the existence of only 1827 tigers. Various pressures in the later part of the last century led to the progressive decline of wilderness, resulting in the disturbance of viable tiger habitats. At the IUCN General Assembly meeting in Delhi, in 1969, serious concern was voiced about the threat to several species of wildlife and the shrinkage of wilderness in the country. In 1970, a national ban on tiger hunting was imposed and in 1972 the Wildlife Protection Act came into force. A ‘Task Force’ was then set up to formulate a project for tiger conservation with an ecological approach.

The project was launched in 1973, and various tiger reserves were created in the country on a ‘core-buffer’ strategy. The core areas were freed from all sorts of human activities and the buffer areas were subjected to ‘conservation oriented land use’. Management plans were drawn up for each tiger reserve, based on the principles outlined below:
1. Elimination of all forms of human exploitation and biotic disturbance from the core area and rationalization of activities in the buffer zone.
2. Restricting the habitat management only to repair the damages done to the eco-system by human and other interferences, so as to facilitate recovery of the eco-system to its natural state.
3. Monitoring the faunal and floral changes over time and carrying out research about wildlife.

Initially, 9 tiger reserves were established in different States during the period 1973-74, by pooling the resources available with the Central and State Governments. These nine reserves covered an area of about 13,017sq.km - Manas (Assam), Palamau (Bihar), Similipal (Orissa), Corbett (U.P.), Kanha (M.P.), Melghat (Maharashtra), Bandipur (Karnataka), Ranthambhore (Rajasthan) and Sunderbans (West Bengal).

The project started as a ‘Central Sector Scheme’ with the full assistance of Central Government till 1979-80: later, it become a ‘centrally Sponsored Scheme’ from 1980-81, with equal sharing of expenditure between the center and the states.
The W.W.F. has given an assistance of US $ 1 million in the form of equipments, expertise and literature. The various States are also bearing the loss on account of giving up the forestry operations in the reserves.

The main achievements of this project are excellent recovery of the habitat and consequent increase in the tiger population in the reserve areas, from a mere 268 in 9 reserves in 1972 to 1576 in 27 reserves in 2003. Tiger, being at the apex of the food chain, can be considered as the indicator of the stability of the eco-system. For a viable tiger population, a habitat should possess a good prey base, which in turn will depend on an undisturbed forest vegetation. Thus, ‘Project Tiger’, is basically the conservation of the entire eco-system and apart from tigers, all other wild animals also have increased in number in the project areas. In the subsequent ‘Five Year Plans’, the main thrust was to enlarge the core and buffer zones in certain reserves, intensification of protection and ecodevelopment in the buffer zones of existing tiger reserves, creation of additional tiger reserves and strengthening of the research activities.

The management strategy was to identify the limiting factors and to mitigate them by suitable management. The damages done to the habitat were to be rectified, so as to facilitate the recovery of eco-system to the maximum possible extent. Management practices which tend to push the wildlife populations beyond the carrying capacity of the habitat were carefully avoided. A minimum core of 300 sq. km. with a sizeable buffer was recommended for each project area. The overall administration of the project is monitored by a ‘Steering Committee’. The execution of the project is done by the respective State Governments. A ‘Field Director’ is appointed for each reserve, who is assisted by the field and technical personnel. The Chief Wildlife warden in various States are responsible for the field execution. At the Centre, a full-fledged ‘Director’ of the project coordinates the work for the country.

Objectives of Project Tiger
The main objective of Project Tiger is to ensure a viable population of tiger in India for scientific , economic , aesthetic , cultural and ecological values and to preserve for all time, areas of biological importance as a natural heritage for the benefit, education and enjoyment of the people. Main objectives under the scheme include wildlife management, protection measures and site specific ecodevelopment to reduce the dependency of local communities on tiger reserve resources.

Initially, the Project started with 9 tiger reserves, covering an area of 16,339 sq.km., with a population of 268 tigers. At present there are 27 tiger reserves covering an area of 37761 sq.km., with a population of 1498 tigers. This amounts to almost 1.14% of the total geographical area of the country. The selection of reserves was guided by representation of ecotypical wilderness areas across the biogeographic range of tiger distribution in the country. Project Tiger is undisputedly a custodian of major gene pool. It is also a repository of some of the most valuable ecosystem and habitats for wildlife.

Strategy
Tiger Reserves are constituted on a ‘core-buffer’ strategy. The core area is kept free of biotic disturbances and forestry operations, where collection of minor forest produce, grazing, human disturbances are not allowed within. However, the buffer zone is managed as a ‘multiple use area’ with twin objectives of providing habitat supplement to the spill over population of wild animals from the core conservation unit, and to provide site specific eco-developmental inputs to surrounding villages for relieving their impact on the core. Except for the National Parks portion if contained within, normally no relocation of villages is visualised in the buffer area, and forestry operations, Forest Produce collection and other rights and concessions to the local people are permitted in a regulated manner to complement the initiatives in the core unit.

Initial Successes 1973 to 1990
Project Tiger had put the tiger on an assured course of recovery from the brink of extinction, and has resurrected the floral and faunal genetic diversity in some of our unique and endangered wilderness ecosystem. The population of tigers in the country has increased significantly to about 3500 (1990) from less than 2000 at the time of launch of the project.
The effective protection and concerted conservation measures inside the reserves brought about considerable intangible achievements also, viz. arresting erosion, enrichment of water regime thereby improving the water table and overall habitat resurrection. Labour intensive activities in tiger reserves helped in poverty alleviation amongst the most backward sections, and their dependence on forests also reduced.

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On the 1st of October 2004 the park reopened for tourists – the beginning of a new tourist season for Ranthambore national park. I remember the safari on the 1st morning. The park was lush green (it is like that only in the month of October) and all the waterholes were overflowing. I found a lot of evidence of cattle, in the form of their hoof prints on the ground and dung, all over the park. That is when the alarm bells started ringing. All through the monsoons the forest authorities were claiming that there was “zero grazing” during the last 3 month but the evidence that we found on the ground said something else. If the cattle grazers were all over the park, the poachers should also have been inside. Which was true, as we later found out.

October 2004 to April 2005 was expected to be a very busy tourist season and it was. Between October and November the tourists who visited the park had some great tiger sightings and every body was happy. The hotels, guides, taxi owners and drivers were making good money and were very happy. The forest department went around telling anybody who cared to listen that since the tourists were seeing tigers every day there was no poaching problem what so ever.

However, tourists are permitted on seven different routes in the park and all these seven routes put together cover less than half the park’s area. There was no one covering the other half, except for the forest department. The department also made sure that none of the tourist vehicles strayed from the routes. Were they trying to hide something? Were they aware that something was really wrong in the park? By the beginning of November it was getting more and more obvious that mot of the tiger sightings were happening only in three different areas – Berda valley, the area of the lakes and in the Lahpur valley. The rest of the areas in the tourism zone of the ranthambore national park were drawing a blank – not a total blank but close to it.

The tourism zone of the Ranthambhore national park, which covers about half the park, is the best part of the park. On record the forest department states that the prime areas of the park are out of bounds for tourists. The reality, however, is that the areas where tourists do not go are thrashed. These areas have the highest disturbance anywhere in the park – disturbance from illegal tree felling, illegal grazing, grass cutting and poaching. The least disturbed areas are the ones that tourists visit. Of course these areas have “disturbance” in the form of tourists and their vehicles but this disturbance is nothing compared to the disturbance that exists in areas where tourists do not go.

The forest department keeps harping about “the disturbance due to tourists” in the Ranthambore but they never talk about the real disturbance in the park, the one, which is due to people who just should not be in the park. The thing is that they never let this disturbance get on their records so as far as they are concerned it just does not exist. If one goes through the records, neither a single tree nor a blade of grass has ever been cut inside the park. And of course there has never been any poaching in the park – ever.

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Ranthambhore National Park, like all project Tiger Reserves in India, shuts down for visitors during the monsoons. Since Ranthambhore lies in Rajasthan – the driest Indian state – it only shuts down for three months of monsoons, from July to September. This is the most dangerous time for the big predators.

Due to the monsoon rains the undergrowth and grasses inside the park are lush green and this makes for excellent fodder for ungulates and cattle. The villagers enter the park with their cattle and often get into violent fights with the forest department staff. As a result many of the more isolated forest guard-houses (or chowkies) inside the park are abandoned. Many of the smaller guard-houses have 2-3 forest guards and these few guards neither have the will nor the resources to take on the more numerous and organized groups of villagers. During the monsoons the park is an “open house” for all – the illegal grazers, wood-cutters and poachers.

It is widely believed that most of the poaching incidents occur during the monsoons but this is not true. Most of the big cat poaching occurs during the summer months of May and June, when it is easy to find the big cats. During the peak of summers – in May and June – most of the smaller waterholes dry out and water is available in very few places in the park. Since the big cats during summers, particularly tigers, tend to spend most of their time in or near water, it is very easy to find them. During the monsoons there is water and fodder for the prey species all over the park and as a result the ungulates are spread out all over the park. Since there is prey and water all over, the tigers also tend to spread out all over. As a result it is more difficult to find them. So even though there is hardly any protection in the park during the monsoon months of July, August and September, tigers are generally more secure in the park during monsoons then they are in summers.

However during the monsoons there are a lot of cattle and cattle herders inside the park. Tigers often kill the cattle because they are easy prey. During such times the tigers are at great risk. It would take a tiger 3-4 days to finish eating a cattle kill. During these 3-4 days they tend to stay near the kill, leaving it only for short periods of time. Since cattle is a very valuable resource for the local villagers, even one kill can be a bad set back for them. To take revenge they would sometimes “get back” a the tiger. They do this by either poisoning the carcass when the tiger is away or by tipping off a mogiya about the kill. The mogiya then stakes out the kill and shoots the tiger when it returns to the kill. Either ways it means a dead tiger.

At least one such incident happened during the monsoons of 2004. There may have been more but we definitely know of one. In July 2004, just after the first showers, the local villagers entered the park with their cattle. For the last 3-4 years the forest department was under a lot of pressure to stop grazing in the park during the monsoons. Since this was not possible for them to do, they declared that there was “zero grazing’ in 2004 monsoons. This pleased everybody. The local forest officers did not have to face any flak, the senior forest officers in Jaipur were happy and the conservationists were happy. Only the wildlife was not happy because the park was full of cattle.

Somewhere in August a male tiger killed a bull in “Peeli ghati” near the village of Uliyana. The villagers tipped of Devi Singh Mogiya – an extremely dangerous poacher who is now behind bars. Devi Singh set up a hide (or machaan) near the carcass and when the tiger returned to the kill he shot him dead. The next month Devi Singh killed another tiger in Kachida kid eh. This is a permanent waterhole about a 100 meters away from the Kachida chowki (or guard house). The guards of this chowki regularly use this waterhole for taking a bath and doing their laundry. Surprisingly, on the day that Devi Singh killed this tiger, the guards neither heard the gun shot nor did they go near the water hole for the next few days, which was more than enough time for Devi Singh to skin the tiger and take the bones out of the carcass.

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Tiger Watch is an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) based in Ranthambhore that is headed by Mr. Fateh Singh Rathore. If there is one person who should get the credit for setting up this park, it is this man in the picture below.

He came to Ranthambhore in 1960 when it was still the private hunting ground of the Jaipur royal family (though the Government of Rajasthan technically owned the forest). In 1960, the Jaipur royal family invited the Queen of England and the Duke of Edinburgh (who is now an “avid” conservationist) to shoot a tiger in Ranthambhore. At that time Colonel Kesri Singh – a very “colorful” person – who was in charge of Ranthambhore was getting very old. Fateh Singh, who had just joined the Rajasthan Forest Service, was sent here to assist the Colonel in making arrangements for the Queen. The queen came and left without shooting a tiger (she famously “sprained her trigger finger”) but Fateh Singh stayed on as a Ranger posted to look after the forest. During that visit the Duke did shoot a tiger – the last one that was shot here legally. In 1973, when Ranthambhore was declared as a “Project Tiger reserve” he was made the Deputy Field Director and later on he became the Director of the reserve.

He had a very controversial career but that cannot detract from the fact that he made Ranthambhore what it is today. He was responsible for creating most of the waterholes here (including all the lakes), for shifting the 12 villages out of the park and for such efficient monitoring and policing of the park that within a decade of it being declared a Project Tiger Reserve, Ranthambhore became the best place in the world to see wild tigers. After his retirement from the Rajasthan Forest Service he has settled down in a farm on the outskirts of Ranthambhore. After the disastrous poaching incidents of the early 1990s, Fateh set up “Tiger Watch” with the aim of monitoring the tigers’ health in Ranthambhore and acting as a pressure group for tigers benefit. Tiger Watch is not very popular with the Rajasthan Forest department but with objectives like that you cannot be popular with the forest department.

In October 2003 Dr. Dharmendra Khandal joined Tiger Watch as a Research Officer for their “Tiger Monitoring Project”. Dharmendra has one his PhD. In botany and is probably the foremost expert on spiders in India. He is a very focused young man who is totally obsessed with wildlife. I got to know him as soon as he arrived in Ranthambhore and we are now very close friends.

As part of his project, the first task that Dharmendra had to accomplish was to identify the different tigers that were in the park. This is easier said than done. In 1999, Dr. Ulhas Karanth and his team from the Wildlife Conservation Society had conducted a tiger density study using camera traps in about 25% of the area of the park. They had “trapped” 16 different tigers in their infrared trip cameras. Dharmendra used these 16 tigers as his first reference point and to this he added the database of 22 different tiger identification images that I had collected from 1999 to 2002. By merging these two data he got together identification pictures of about 25 different tigers, like the one above. During the span of his project that went on from October 2003 to June 2004, he added about a dozen more tigers – most of them were born after 2002 but some of them were those that we had missed. On the 30th of June 2004 he submitted a report to the forest department that “there are 18 tigers missing” from Ranthambhore. He did not mean, at that time, that these are dead but rather that they are not being seen and someone should look into it………………The forest department took immediate action on this report – they withdrew the permission that Tiger watch had to conduct research in the park. The authorities in India do not like such reports.

“Broken Tail” - the tiger in the picture above was run down by a train about a hundred miles away from Ranthambhore. How he got there is anybody’s guess.

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Mogiya is a tribe whose members have been hunters since a long time. They mainly inhabit the tracts from Sheopur district of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh to the Gwalior district of the same state. This is a long tract of forested area along the banks of the river Chambal – the “bandit” river of India. The traditional economy of the Mogiyas was totally dependent on the forest. They were hunters who would survive by selling bush meat to the local villagers. They were often employed by the local villagers to protect their crop from being grazed by wild animals. Sometimes, they were also employed as “game watchers” in the private hunting grounds of the royalty and big landlords. The only skill that they have is tracking and hunting. And they are really good at it.

They are a very secretive community who often resorted to crime to supplement their meager incomes. Though they originally come from this area along the Chambal – between the states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – one could call them semi-nomadic, as they keep drifting. During the Raj, the British administration had classified them as a “criminal tribe”. The economic gains that India made in the past few decades totally bypassed them. Presently, the Mogiyas, like the two women in the picture below, are one of the poorest and most politically isolated of all the communities in the region. They are, in fact, not even classified as “tribals” by the government of India and so get none of the benefits that the “tribals” get in India.

After the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 was promulgated in India, hunting became totally illegal in India and the Mogiyas traditional skills became “illegal activities”. No attempts were made by the state to train them in new skills and rehabilitate them. As a result they are right now the most deadly poachers of Central India.

Around Ranthambhore, a large number of villages still employ the Mogiyas as protectors of their crops from raids by wild animals. The Mogiyas are paid a small fee for doing this but more importantly the villagers give the Mogiyas protection from being arrested by the authorities. They usually build a small temporary hutment of wood and thatch near the village at a vantage point – from where they can keep a look out for wild game and the local authorities that come to raid them.

Mogiyas, mostly, supplement their incomes by killing and supplying bush meat to the local people. Some of them also kill tigers, leopards and bears – when the time is right. The time is right when there is a demand for skins and bones of these predators and when the policing by the Forest department is lax. When Mr. G.V. Reddy left as the Field Director of Ranthambhore, at the end of 2002, the time was right.

Even when Mr. Reddy was here there was some bit of hunting going on in and around Ranthambhore. But the Forest department was very active at that time and the general impression on the ground was that it is very risky to kill big game around Ranthambhore. The chances of getting caught and prosecuted were very high. Even them a few people were killing animals but there were no reports of large scale poaching by organized gangs. It is extremely difficult to totally stop all forms of poaching because of the lie of the land and with the meager resources that are there at the disposal of the forest department. At that time most of the “organized poachers” had migrated away from here for easier pastures. When Reddy left – the time was right for the bad guys.

The man in the above picture is Rajmal Mogiya, who is currently in jail for killing three tigers in Ranthambhore. He was arrested by Dharmendra Khandal and Vakil Mohammed - the two super hero activists of Tiger Watch. The three of us - Dharmendra, Vakil and I had earlier (in end of January 2005) arrested him for killing a sambar deer. We are also trying to wean his family away from poaching, by finding altrenative sources of income for them. In this we are being helped by Kids for Tigers , Delhi. The girl in the picture below is his grand daughter.

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About three years ago (when G.V. Reddy left from here after serving as a Field Director) there were around 40 tigers, if not a few more. Reddy’s departure got the poachers active again. Most of the big game poaching here is done by three group of tribal - the Mogiya’s, Bagariya’s and Kanjar’s. Out of these three the Mogiyas are probably the most dangerous for the tigers and leopards. They live in a 100-kilometer long belt along the river Chambal on the Madhya Pradesh side. They often come over around the park and make small temporary huts on the outskirts of villages. The villagers support them because they protect their field from getting raided by wild ungulates. Almost all the Mogiyas are hunters but very few of them actually go after big cats.

During Reddy’s time the Forest Department was very actively raiding the Mogiyas. As a result most of them crossed the Chambal to live in M.P. When Reddy left small time hunting by locals got a boost. Every village has a group of people who regularly kill animals like hare, boars, sambar and spotted deer for meat. Reddy had managed to keep this in control. After he left this “small time hunting” got a boost. Soon the big guys were back from across the Chambal.

Tigers, Leopards and Sloth bears started disappearing from early 2003. By the end of summers 2004 there were not more than 30 tigers left. By the end of January 2005 there were not more than 25 left. It was only by the summer of 2004 that the first few signs became visible to the people who live and work here that the number of predators was going down. By the beginning of summers of 2004 it was becoming more and more obvious to some people like me, who are involved in tourism and are very interested in wildlife that most of the tiger sightings were happening in only three places – the lakes, Berda and Lahpur. There were large stretches inside the park, most of them in areas that are prohibited for tourists, where no evidence of tigers being found. There are many tigers that are not very visible but even they have to leave indirect evidence of their presence, such as impressions of their paws in the ground (known as “pugmarks”), scat droppings, scratch marks on trees etc.

Why did it take so long for us to realize that the number of large predators was going down? Only about 40% of the Ranthambhore national Park is open to tourists. This 40% is the best part of the park, mainly because the tourist vehicles “patrol” it very intensively and frequently. The rest of the area is technically out of bounds for us, though we do go in there once in a while. It was this area that is out of bounds for tourists that took the major brunt of poaching. The officials of the Forest department, initially, did not observe the signs of poaching and later on when they realized that things were not all well they started hiding the signs. The more senior officers who are based in Jaipur – the state capital – went on a denying that there was anything wrong. It took a combination of Sariska and Tiger Watch to shake them from their slumber.

During 2001 – 2002, I worked as a Field Assistant for a documentary film on tigers (“Danger in Tiger’s paradise”) that was aired by the BBC. I worked on this project till the end of February 2002. During this period there were three big males – “Nick-ear”, “Chips” and the “Chiroli male” that we used to regularly come across. Somewhere around the beginning of 2004 we stopped coming across anyone of these three males. By the time summers arrived in April, we had not come across any one of these three males even once. That’s when the alarm bells first went off in my head.

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In the early 2003 Mr. G.V.Reddy left for higher studies to Mysore. At that time, all of us in Ranthambhore were firm in our opinion that there were over 40 tigers (including cubs) in the park. Towards the end of his tenure here, Reddy was promoted as the Field Director of the park. He was earlier the Deputy Field Director. After he became the Field Director, Mr. G.S. Bhardwaj joined as the Deputy Field Director. Mr. Bhardwaj did some good work initially but he soon got bogged down in a lot of controversies. Besides he had very poor support from his junior officers.

Around this time almost all the officers in charge of the park were transferred and the new lot that had joined did not have much local support. They did not even try to build any local support. Besides none of them had any experience with wild life. This happens in India all the time – an officer with no background in wildlife gets posted to a premier tiger reserve and in a few days time he starts assuming that he is the ultimate expert on tigers. The bigger problem is that the government actually gives him the authority to implement whatever stupid ideas he comes out with. This is exactly what happened in Ranthambhore in 2003.

The new lot of officers that joined in 2003, were so busy checking out the tourists and the new hotels that were coming up around Ranthambhore that they had no time for the park. This is when the “bad guys” realized that the protection in Ranthambhore has become soft and that they can easily go in for the kill.

The demand for tiger skins and bones has been going up for the last decade or so. The skins mostly go to Tibet through Nepal, while the bones and other parts go to China and East Asia. (The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) of UK has some excellent documentation of the trade in tiger parts). In the last 2-3 years, as a lot of Tibeteans started getting richer the demand for Tiger and Leopard skins went through the ceiling. To quote from the EIA website: “Travellers to Tibet in 1995 documented the use of tiger and leopard skins to decorate costumes known as chubas, mostly among the Khampa people from eastern Tibet. Historically however, the wearing of skins was restricted to victorious war commanders, rewarded with a patch of skin by the great Kings of Tibet; it is not traditional for every day Tibetans to wear tiger and leopard skin. It was never traditional to wear the entire skin or great swathes of skin. Tragically, anyone with the affluence is able to wear this illegal product”

Unfortunately for Ranthambhore, as the demand for tiger skins went up the quality of protection declined dramatically.

Mr. Reddy had built up such a reputation here that most of the small time poachers around here – who kill small mammals (mainly deer, hare and wild-boars) for bush meat – had been lying low till he was in-charge. When he left such people became active again. When no action was taken against them they word spread that “Ranthambhore has again become a soft target”. And the “big bad guys”, who had disappeared in Reddy’s time came back. These guys were mostly from Mogiya and Bagariya tribes. These are hunting tribes who were classified as “criminal tribes” during the British Raj. I will tell you more about them in another post.

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