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Two tiger poisoned in Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve
At around 1000 hours in the morning the Deputy Field Director of Ranthambhore national park (RS Shekhawat) called me and asked me to reach the Tadla chowki (or Forest Guard House) near Banas river as soon as possible, along with MD Parasher. He told me that the two “Chiroli cubs” were dead, probably poisoned and that he was inside the Ranthambhore national park and heading to the area where this happened. He wanted both of us to be an “independent witness” to the case.
I got in touch with MD Parasher (an artist based in Ranthambhore) and we left for the Tadla in a few minutes. When we reached the chowki there was a guard waiting for us and from there we drove towards a small village called “Tadla ka khet” about a mile ahead of Amli Deh (a deep water pool in the river). This area is across the river Banas and lies in the Baler forest range, at the edge of the Keladevi sanctuary, which is a part of Ranthambhore tiger reserve. We met up with RS Shekhawat, Range Officer Daulat Singh and the Range Officer Baler at the edge of river Banas, just beyond Amli Deh. There were about a dozen forest guards with them. The Deputy Director confirmed that the two cubs (actually sub adult tigers who had separated from their mother slightly over two months ago) were dead.
The location:
The “Tadla ka khet” village lies in the midst of ravines between the Banas river basin and the Keladevi plateau. The terrain is typical of the ravines that are found along Chambal river and its tributaries – steep and low sand cliffs that have been cut by monsoon rain fed “nallah” (streams) and there is little level ground in the entire area. There is some level ground near the village, which is used for farming.
There are very few large mammals that can be seen there in the day because of the disturbance by goat herders. One does see a lot of hoof prints and droppings so mammals like Nilgai, Wild boar, Sambar etc must be using the area, more so during the nights, when there are no herders around.
There are about 5 extended families in this small village of farmers and goat herders. Only one of these five families does not rear goats, while the other mainly depend on goat rearing for their living.
Technically this area is in the Baler range of the Keladevi Sanctuary, as it is across the river Banas but for the last two (more or less) years its management comes under the Deputy Director Ranthambhore national park and not under the Deputy Director Karauli, who administers the rest of Keladevi Sanctuary.
View Tadla ka khet in a larger map
Ranthambhore tiger reserve consists of the Ranthambhore national park, keladevi sanctuary, Sawai Mansingh sanctuary, Sawaimadhopur sanctuary, Kuwalji protected area and some smaller protected areas.
The tigers:
The two tigers that died are supposed to be 16 to 17 months old though they appeared to be older than that to me. The forest department informed us that they were first camera trapped about 13-14 months ago in the Chiroli area of the Kundera range of Ranthambhore national park. That is why they are known as the Chiroli cubs. As far as I know, they were never ever seen in any of the tourist zones and there are very few photographs of this family. They must have been regularly picked up in the camera traps in Chiroli and Bheed area of the national park but since these areas are out of bound for us I do not know much about these tigers. These two cubs had separated from their mother somewhere in January 2010 and since then had moved out of the national park to the Baler range of Keladevi sanctuary, which is a part of the tiger reserve. Right now Ranthambhore national park has far too many male tigers so the moment male cubs separate from their mother they have to start looking for a territory in the fringes of the national park. The other more dominant males ensure that they have to do that. In the last few months almost all the tigers that are moving out of the national park are young males that have just separated from their mother.
What happened on 7th March 2010 (Sunday):
Parasher and I reached near Tadla ka khet by 1100 hours. We parked about a 100 meters away from where the tigers were lying dead and where there were three other forest department jeeps. By that time the forest guards and officers had tracked the entire area but I decided to do it again for my information. The Deputy Director and the other officers present informed us that a team of forest officers and guards were searching the village and the area around for the people who could have done this. One of the forest guards (Lakshmi Pandit, who I know well from before), told me that the guards from Tadla ki chowki had seen pugmarks of the tigers on the 4th and 5th March at some distance but did not find any pugmarks on the 6th. On the 7th morning while tracking this area they smelt rotting flesh and that is how they found the dead tigers.
We walked a short distance from there to the place where the one of cubs was lying dead. This tiger (tiger 1) was lying at the edge of a dry streambed (nallah). A few meters ahead along the same nallah we saw a carcass of a goat that had been almost totally consumed. The area around this goat’s carcass was full of tiger pugmarks. Between the goat’s carcass and the dead tiger there were two tiger scats and one patch of dark vomit. Lopped off branches of thorny Acacia tree were placed around the carcass in such a way that there was only one easy way (the one on the steam bed) to get to this carcass. This was obviously done to “lead” the tiger to the goat’s carcass. The Tadla ka khet village was not more than 500 meters (as the crow flies) from this place.
About 50 feet away from this goat’s carcass, on a low mud hill, there was a lot of goat hair lying on the ground. From this place there were drag marks and human footprints to a Salvadora tree. On top of this tree was a carcass of another goat and some branches were lopped off on this tree. It was clear that some people had dragged this goat’s carcass to the tree and then placed it on a branch of the tree after lopping some small branches off.
The body of the other male tiger (Tiger 2) was lying in the open, in a saucer shaped basin, about a 100 meters away from that of the first tiger’s body. This tiger’s body was not as badly decomposed as the first ones. In fact both the bodies were not too badly decomposed. Predators decompose really fast and usually there is nothing left in 3 or 4 days time, particularly in months like March, which are pretty hot. There were broad drag marks leading away from this tiger’s body. I followed these drag marks. The marks led to a small shady Acacia tree. It was obvious that this tiger (Tiger 2) had rested and vomited under this tree for some time and then he dragged himself from this tree to the point where he finally died. This was obvious from the width of the drag marks, which had “stretched out” pugmarks and vomit spots on them. There were hyena and jackals pugmarks all over the place and it was clear that some animal had tried to eat this tiger’s carcass but had given up. A part of this tigers flank was opened up but hardly anything at all was consumed.
From reading the tracks around (I had a good couple of hours to do so) I concluded the following:
A little after noon, the team of veterinary doctor, forensic expert from Sawai Madhopur mobile Forensic unit, few other government officers and local police had arrived. By then almost all the officers of Ranthambhore tiger reserve, including the Field Director, four Assistant Conservator of Forests, two more Forest Rangers and many forest guards had arrived. Post mortem was conducted on the tigers and the goats and forensic samples were collected. A Field report was written up both Parasher and I signed it as independent witnesses. The carcasses of both the tigers and the goats were then burnt till there was nothing left. One interesting thing that the veterinary doctor told us that there were two cut marks (probably made with an axe) on the body of tiger 1. These were made after the tiger had died.
Sometimes around noon some members of the team of forest officials who were searching the neighborhood for people came back to inform the DFO that they did not find any one in the Tadla ka khet village, except one young man and one old sick man. All of them had run away when they saw the first Forest Department jeep arrive. They did find a few women form the village in their fields on the Banas riverbed. The forest officers were interrogating this young man and some other people who were working in the fields on the riverbank (about half a kilometer away from this spot). A few of them informed us that the dead goats belonged to a man called Ram Khiladi Gujjar from Tadla ka khet. All through this time we could hear men shouting (to each other) and looking at the proceedings from top of the plateau. They were clearly visible but I could not make out what they were shouting. This went on for a few hours. We could see these people but to get to the top of the plateau would have taken any one of us more than an hour. So there was no chance of catching them.
It was close to sunset by then and most of us (Parasher, the doctors and forensic people etc) left. The entire forest department team stayed behind to conduct raids in the area.
I tried calling up the Deputy Director on Sunday night before I went to sleep but could not get through to him. They had not returned from the area of operation.
The next morning I called the Deputy Director as soon as I got up and what he told me was that they were conducting raids in the area till late in the night. They had managed to apprehend two main accused – Ram Khiladi Gujjar (the owner of the goats that had been killed by the tigers) and one of his friends / relatives Mukesh Gujjar. The Deputy Director also mentioned that these two main accused had told them that on the afternoon of the 4th March the two tigers had attacked the heard of goats and killed two goats. The tigers had injured a third goat that later died in the village. The herders managed to scare the two tigers off the kill. They put one of the goat’s body on top of the tree while they guarded the second goat’s body (to keep the tigers away). Ram Khiladi went to the nearby Khandar town and bought a bottle of strong pesticide (locally known as Aldrin though it is a different brand) and some syringes. He and Mukesh injected one of the goat’s carcass with this pesticide a number of times and poured the rest of the pesticide in the offal’s of the goat. They then left the poisoned goat in the nallah and cordoned a part of the nallah off with thorny branches. By the time they finished doing that it had become dark. That night the tigers did not return to the kill. However, the next night (on the 5th March) both the tigers came back and ate the entire poisoned goat. The two accused found the bodies of the tiger the next morning just after sunrise.
Unfortunately these two tigers died because the three goats that these two tigers killed were more precious for the herders than two living tigers. Rupees 2000 (about 40 US dollars) of financial loss for two people killed two living tigers. This unfortunately is the reality of tiger conservation in wild India and no amount of campaigning can change this. Unless a living tiger has financial value for most of the people who live near tiger habitats, tiger are not going to survive.
Machali - 12 years old, an award winner and fighting fit
On the 24th of April 2009, Machali (Ranthambhore’s most famous tigress) and B2 (Bandhavgarh’s most famous tiger) were given a “life time achievement award” by TOFT in Delhi. TOFT or Travel Operators for Tigers is a pressure group of Travel Operators (www.toftindia.org/index.php), Destination management companies and Accommodation providers who aim to make wildlife tourism in India more responsible.
TOFT estimated that Machali contributed about US $ 10 million per annum for the last 10 years to the local economy in Ranthambhore, while B2 contributed over US $ 7.5 million per annum to Bandhavgarh’s economy. This is their contribution to the local economy and I for one believe that these are very conservative estimates. Their overall contribution to the Indian economy is far more than this maybe even three or four times more than this.
Are such awards just a gimmick or do they help? I got a lot of flank from “net activists” that this a pure gimmick and that I should not be involved in such activities. I am involved and totally support such awards. They tend to increase the profile of the individual tiger and their park, which straight away means more and better protection. Such awards also give a much-needed boost to the morale of the staff working in the park. Right now most of the officials working in Ranthambhore are on cloud nine and I sure the guards in Bandhavgarh are as thrilled. Generally speaking, unknown tigers usually die an unknown and premature death while the known ones tend to live out their natural life.
I do not know much about Bandhavgarh, so I will let someone else blog about B2 but I do know Machali. Machali and I came to Ranthambhore about the same time. What I mean is that when I moved permanently to Ranthambhore in 1998, Machali was a cub – the dominant one out of a litter of three females. In early 1999 she took over the area of the lakes in Ranthambhore and has stayed there since then. She sired four litters and two of the three tigers that were relocated to Sariska tiger reserve are her offspring’s (so much for mixing the gene pool in Sariska). About three years ago she lost most of her canines but that did not stop her from giving birth to and raising a litter of three females. She is now old and I am not too sure if she will live for much longer. She has only half a canine left, her territory has shrunk and she rarely goes near the lakes any more. The lakes are now part of the territory of her dominant cub from the last litter.
In the end of March she killed a large male Sambar deer in a narrow valley (Bhoot Khurra) in the heart of Ranthambhore national park. Two days later a male (that we call Star male or T 28) snatched her kill and a few hours after that the to of them had a fight. We were fortunate to be in the right place when the fight happened. The Star male is young and at his peak but Machali held her ground. Though just a year ago this male would not have had a chance against her. This was on the evening of 1st of April 2009 (April fool’s day) but I am not trying to pull a fast one on you. See the 6 pictures below.
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| From Ranthambhore |
Star male cautiously approaches Machali’s Sambar deer kill
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| From Ranthambhore |
Star male pushes Machali off her kill and starts eating
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| From Ranthambhore |
Machali returns to the kill after a few hours and the stage is all set for fireworks
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| From Ranthambhore |
Fireworks. The Star male has his back to the camera
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| From Ranthambhore |
Fighting tigers
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| From Ranthambhore |
After the fight Machali gets all submissive while the male walks off
Missing tiger found
There are reports in the local and national newspaper that a male tiger – officially known as T 3 (picture below – taken before he was radio collared) – has been reported missing from the Ranthambhore national park for over two months. This tiger (we call him Bahadur or Bunty) is the male cub of Machali (Ranthambhore’s best known tigress) from her previous litter. He is about 4 years old and use to be found in the heart of the park between the lakes and a place called Lakkarda (with in the bigger circle in the map below).
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| From Ranthambhore |
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| From Ranthambhore |
T 3 was one of the first tigers of Ranthambhore to be radio collared by the Wildlife Institute of India. However, there was some defect in the transmitter in his radio collar and it never really worked properly.
Somewhere in the second half of October he moved of this area and was not seen since then. The Forest guards did try for many days to track him down but had little success. Recently it came out in the newspapers that this tiger is missing. We have no idea why he decided to change his territory.
In the middle of November we had Daniel and Daniella Free (our regular guests from UK) staying with us. On the 17th of November 2008 they had gone for a safari on zone number 5 that goes right across the park. In the early afternoon they spotted a male tiger (without a radio collar) near the Thumka chowki (smaller circle in the map above). Their guide (Vijay Singh) told me that they had seen a young and confident male crossing the forest track and that the male had blood marks on his chest, probably from eating a kill. At that time we were sure that it was not T 3 that they saw because they had seen a tiger without a radio collar.
Daniella was generous enough to give me two pictures of this male (pictures below) and just yesterday I got down to match those two images with the other pictures that I have. And guess what it turned out to be T 3 without the collar. I immediately called up the forest authorities and informed them. The Deputy Field Director came over to the shack that we call our office and took a copy of the images. Even he took a long time to believe that this male had somehow managed to get rid of the ugly collar around his neck.
Three cheers for T 3 without the collar.
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| From Ranthambhore |
The tourism conundrum - An insider responds
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.
Update from Ranthambhore
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. 
Indala Plateau – Final for this year
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…….
Indala Plateau
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.
Another Ranthambhore tiger killed
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.
Mail from Roy
I got a mail from Roy Fallon - my good friend from UK. He is very keen on Indian wildlife and is a great friend of tigers. Lately he has been very concerned about the “tiger crisis” in India. I think every one interested in wild tigers should go through this mail exchange that we just had.
Dear Roy,
Nice to hear from you.
The tiger situation is indeed bad (to say the least).
It appears that the government of India (the Federal government) is waking up to it but we just hope they don’t take a few years to to do so. The Prime Minister has been giving some statements lately that the tiger situation is really bad and they have to take some urgent steps to correct it. They have “plans” to set up a nation wide cell against wildlife crime and a National Tiger Conservation Authority, something like the FBI. They are also planning to recruit retired military personnel to guard the tiger reserves. I really hope that these plans are implemented “properly” and soon. There is not much time left. In fact we are already about 6 to 7 years late.
I may not really be an authority on tigers in India but I do know much more than the average Joe and I foresee a few major problems with these plans:
1. Timing
If anything has to be done it has to be done now. The Indian government has a very strong tendency to delay implementation till it does not matter any more. Right now even a bad plan would do a lot of good if it is executed right away. Doing something right away is definitely better than doing nothing at all. I just hope that they do not keep planning and delay the implementation of the few ideas that they have. And believe me they have a very few ideas.
2. Data
It is a shame that we don’t have enough scientific data on tigers, their habitat and their problems. There is hardly any research material on tigers in India. Research on tiger was discouraged in all parts of India. Whatever little data that we do have is very basic and often faulty.
One Field Director of Ranthambhore tiger reserve had once told me that “we do not need any research on tigers. We know all there is to know about them and the problems that they face.” He then went on to tell me that “one of the biggest problems that tigers face is traffic jams from photographers.” Was this guy nuts? Yes he definitely was. The problem is that the Government has given him the authority to implement whatever weird ideas that he comes up with.
He was talking about “traffic jams by photographers” when people were shooting tigers all over Ranthambhore. A shot by a camera is forever but a shot from a gun is not. And what traffic jams was he talking about? In a Park like Ranthambhore – which probably gets one of the highest number of tourists out of all the tigers reserves in India – a maximum of 40 vehicles are permitted to go at any one time. These are divided into 5 different zone. So one zone does not have more than 8 vehicles at any given time. These vehicles have to stay on the man-made tracks in the zones. They just can not stray off the track, while the tiger can go where ever he pleases to go. When ever the tigers feels disturbed by visitor’s vehicles he just walks away from the tracks and that’s it. I have seen this repeatedly in Ranthambhore for the last 10 years.
We joke that when ever there is a wildlife related crime the Forest Department officials are the last people to know about it.
The data that is submitted from the field through the Forest Department is “faked” to make the Field officers look good. For instance “Tigers don’t get poached they migrate”, “habitat is never degraded”, “there is an annual 10% rise in tiger population in all India reserves”. The list goes on.
Conservation cannot work unless there is a good and regular supply of data, intelligence, observations etc. We just have to open up the parks to researchers from all over the world. I think that every protected area should have at least on team of researchers, that is neither responsible to the Forest Department nor funded by them.
3. Monitoring
As long as Indian tiger reserves do not have an independent monitoring team, the “faked” data will keep coming up. These teams should have total and unlimited access and they should report to a Centralized authority. Their funding should not be from the Forest Department and they should not be responsible to the Forest Department. Their finding should be published online and should be available to everyone in the world. Tigers belong to all of us on this planet. They are not the exclusive preserve of the Government of India. Even if no action is taken on the findings of such monitoring teams at least let the world know about what is really going on in the tigers reserves. Such teams should carry out an “annual audit” which should be submitted to the highest authority. Believe me nothing works like “Public Pressure”. This team should be different from the research team, like activists to scientists.
4. Role of the states
Forests and wildlife in India have a funny legal status. Technically Forest and Wildlife is a state subject. That means that it is controlled by the state government and not the Federal government. We have a Central authority (it was the Project Tiger a few months ago but it is called “National Tiger Authority” or something like that now) that gives directions to the state Forest Department but the directions are not binding on them. In fact the State Forest Department often has a mind of their own.
For instance the Project Tiger conducted a nation wide survey through the Wildlife Institute of India that came out with some horrifying results, such as, there are no more than 1300 tigers left in India, Madhya Pradesh barely has 250 or so tigers (and not 600 – 700 odd that they claim) and so on. However, most of the states (and it started with Madhya Pradesh) refuse to accept the census.
We have a weird situation here. The Prime Minister of India is going around saying that tigers are on the verge of extinction in India while the State Governments are saying that their state has no problems with tigers. There might be a problem with other states but none in their own state. If they don’t even acknowledge that they have a problem how the hell are they going to sort it out.
All the Tiger Reserves in India should be under the direct control of the Federal Government and not the State Government.
5. Role of Conservationists
We have a small group of “bleeding heart” conservationists in India who are a big stumbling block for any tiger conservation measure. They are part of the “planners” at the Central level and they come out with some of the weirdest ideas you can imagine. Most of them do not have any following at the ground level. They do not like new people to do any kind of conservation work.
I will give you an example: When tigers were decimated in Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan state (and they were nearly decimated in Ranthambhore, that lies in the same state) the Chief Minister of Rajasthan set up a “State Empowered Committee” of Rajasthan Government to look into the problems that tigers in Rajasthan face and to suggest solutions for the same. The Chairman of this committee was a Member of Parliament from Rajasthan and there were a few “well known conservationists” in the committee. When the committee was formed we thought that the Chairman will push the issue under the carpet but the “conservationist” members will kick some ass. What finally happened was exactly the opposite. The “so called conservationists” diluted the issue while the “only man” in the entire committee turned out to the the Chairman.
It is high time the Government “expanded” its group of non-governmental tiger experts to include people from the field in India and experts from all over the world. The two best “tiger guys” in the world are based in USA and our government has nothing to do with them. Can you imagine that?
6. Role of tourism
Indian conservationists and the government does not accept the fact that “tourism is the most powerful conservation tool that they have.” It is a well known fact that in protected areas that are surrounded by high human population density (and most Tiger reserves in India are) tourism is probably the only savior for wildlife. The Forest Department and the conservationists in India believe that tourism is a big “disturbance”. Well managed tourism is the biggest conservation tool in the world.
I will give you an example. The worst managed tiger tour reserve in India is Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh. The tourism area is about a 100 square kilometers (much smaller than Ranthambhore) and on an average there are 50 to 75 vehicles in that area. This area also has the highest tiger density any where in the world – almost 5 to 10 times higher than other places. There are about 30 adult tigers and almost 15 to 20 cubs right now in an area of 100 square kilometers. The numbers are growing every year, while tigers all over Madhya Pradesh are getting decimated.
Wildlife tourism has to be used as a conservation tool in India. We have no choice on this front.
For a long term tiger crisis solution in India we have to address the above issues. I just hope the Prime Minister is listening.
Cheers,
Aditya Singh
PS: I am putting your mail and my reply on my weblog. Check out www.ranthambhore.blogspot.com soon
–
The Ranthambhore Bagh
Ranthambhore Road
Sawai Madhopur 322001
India
—— Forwarded Message
From: ROY FALLON
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:45:24 +0100 (BST)
To: Aditya Singh
Subject: Contact
Hi Aditya
Just contacting you to see how things are going. Lots of good discussion on the Wildlife India forum the last few days. I have replied to a few of them myself.
Looking at the tiger situation from the outside, as I am, it seems difficult to understand why the authorities in India cannot get to grips with the situation. They seem to know exactly who and where the poachers are at almost any one time, yet nothing gets done that is of any significance.
The government seems to leave the problem to the local authorities to sort it out, but I cannot imagine anything getting done in that way. The locals are too dissorganised and too easy to corrupt. The poachers dont stay in one area, they cross borders and seem to just laugh in the face of the law.
I think it requires a national force to be set up, like the U.S.A.’s National Guard and their F.B.I. to harrass and chase these poachers until they can hardly draw breath.
They seem to be left to do exactly as they please and even if they are caught they are released and the penalties are paltry.
When India, loses its tigers, and I am convinced it will, it will be an unimaginable disaster for the whole country. Worse than any earthquake.
The Madhya Pradesh tourist authority has stated that more than 80% of India’s tourism is nature driven and that 75% of it is tiger tourism. They have said that the imbalance of tiger tourism is actually causing problems because certain areas are getting worn out due to the demand to see tigers, whilst others are getting less tourism than desired. Well let the tigers spread themselves out and that will be solved. Open up the corridors between the forests and the tigers will work out where they need to be.
The thing is, most of India’s tourism budget is generated by tiger watchers. That is a massive amount of money coming into the country. When the tiger has gone, people will start going elsewhere. If you take the whole population of India, I am sure that the poachers would hardly show up as a number on a graph, but these greedy and ruthless few are depriving the whole nation of its pride and heritage.
Not just the nation of India but the whole World.
African governments saw this coming a long time ago and did something about it. They made poachers public enemy number one, with the exception of that lunatic in Zimbabwe and the puppets in Uganda and the Gambia.
A lot of people will still go to India to see the Taj Mahal and the Golden Temple at Amritsar etc. but they will just do a round trip of all these and similar places and that will be the end of their interest in the country. The Taj Mahal, I am sure, is a wonderful and beautiful building, but at the end of the day, thats all it is… a building… made by men. The tiger is a gift from the Gods, whichever God(s) exist. Once people have travelled to see the amazing monuments, forts and palaces of India they have seen them and there is nothing more to see about them. But when they see a tiger, walking in the forest, it is an emotional experience that they will want to repeat over and over again.
I sincerely believe that to save the tiger from extinction is to save and preserve all the creatures and the forest environment.
The balance has to exist, the tiger feeds on the herbivores and the herbivores feed on the forest, if the tiger dissappears the lesser carnivores multiply and get out of control, they then ravage the forest of its prey stock, then they enter the villages and farms and take the domestic livestock.
This has been proven in Australia, of all places, where a whole colony of dingoes were exterminated as pests. The dingoes were the apex predators in the area and when they were gone the lesser predators bred like wildfire and decimated the other wildlife of the area, and of course, they then turned to domestic stock….man’s management or man’s interference?
Even the smallest and most insignificant ecosystems that you can think of fall apart in the same way.
A local farmer here in my town, built himself a huge house on, green belt land (land not to be built on). He built a load of stables and a dog boarding kennels. Here in England, those bloody peacocks are seen as a bit of a status symbol. If you are someone who think that you special, you have a load of land round your house and you get yourself a few peacocks to make it look pretty and picturesque. So this farmer got himself 6 peacocks and, as all lazy farmers do, he let them run around his grounds without any protection. So they laid eggs, when the eggs hatched there were baby peacocks running around the grounds.
Guess what???
It may astonish and surprise you, because it did astonish and surprise the farmer, when the local foxes killed all the peacock chicks. So what did this guy, who had introduced an unnatural prey species into the foxes territory, do? He shot all the foxes, of course. He dragged the fox cubs out of their dens and he battered them all to death with a shovel. He proudly acclaimed this feat of bravery to anyone who would listen.He stayed away from me of course, and he still does.
Now, as strange as it may seem, he is complaining about the local wildlife again. Obviously not because his peacock chicks are being eaten, cos there are no predators left to do that. But now he is over run with rabbits, rats and hedgehogs. The rats and hedgehogs are eating all his peacock and chicken eggs and the rabbits are eating all his horse, dog and peacock foods, the rats are at that stuff as well. So now, he is setting traps for the rest of the wildlfe on “his” land. Of course he calls the rabbits, rats and hedgehogs pests and blames them for his dilemma but any child of 8 could tell him that he is the real pest.
Anyway mate I gotta go now, time to get some dinner, my stomach thinks that my throat has been cut.
Talk soon
Roy Fallon
Migration
Recently a judge in the Rajasthan High Court passed a ruling that Ranthambhore should be closed for 2 days in a week so that the animals can get “rest” from tourists.
The Park is shut for tourists during the monsoons from July to end September. The people living around the park have a free run during this time. They go in for grazing their cattle, stocking up firewood for the winters, collecting forest produce like antlers etc, poaching etc etc. There is zero patrolling and I really mean zero. We joke that the rarest sight in Indian parks is a “Forest Guard patrolling his beat”. But believe me this is not a joke.
On a conservative estimate the amount of people who go into Ranthambhore on monsoons (when the park is shut for tourists) is ten times more than the amount of tourists who visit the park throughout the year. However, the authority just chooses to ignore people who go to the park in the monsoons and since there is no official record of such offenders, they officially do not exist.
Every year a few tigers disappear in the monsoon months and are never seen again. The official version (when there is one) is that the tigers have migrated. Migrated to where? This story is probably true for all parks in India, with the exception of Kaziranga - where they shoot first and ask later.
When I moved to Ranthambhore, about 10 years ago, there were over 30 tigers. How am I so sure? Well there was a family in the lake area - a tigress with 3 full grown cubs. There were four other families with three to four cubs each in Kachida, Chiroli, Lahpur and Thumka. There were 4 big males and a few sub adult males and at least 5 tigresses without cubs.
Since then I have seen over 60 cubs grow up to maturity and separate from their mother and then disappear to be never seen again. They just disappear , sorry “migrate” and are never seen again. A noted poacher had told me once that sub adult tigers are the best ones to “milk” - they are nearly full grown (perfect skin size) and no one notices their disappearance. Believe me, when I say that professional poachers actually “milk” tigers for their skin and bones. They never wipe out the entire lot. They really messed up in Sariska - where they ate the chicken instead of the eggs every day.