Tigers Of Tadoba

In search of tigers

On the first day of our safari, we woke up at 4 for a 5 am departure. We were still 11 minutes late. “That’s okay,” said Swanand Kathale, a naturalist with the resort Trees N Tigers, but he moved us briskly to the car, lighting our path with a flashlight. Our bearded naturalist laughed easily and shared his knowledge generously – but he didn’t suffer stragglers. And he was right. The animals don’t wait while we sip our coffee. They would soon be out and about, and we had to bend to their schedule. We had an hour’s drive to the entrance of the forest, and then a ride in an open jeep in search of tigers. 

We were hoping to find Mama (maternal uncle in Marathi), a robust 4-year-old who occupied an area in the buffer zone of Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. We parked our jeep near a tiger statue we saw placed under a tree. A man had been killed here, Swanand told us, and the locals believe his spirit now resides in the tiger. So, the tiger statue was their shrine to the man, and a plea to the tiger to let one man be enough.

We waited for 45 minutes. I was starting to pre-console myself: There will be other chances. People often return without seeing any tigers, but they still seem happy. There is so much else to the forest. A trio of wild boars had allowed us a glimpse before running into the bushes. Other visitors had seen a sloth bear, a leopard. And we had watched a massive gaur, an Indian wild buffalo, gently stroll and munch on grass while a small entourage of cattle egrets followed, dining on the critters his footsteps dislodged. Birds above made a racket, and the guide and naturalist identified call after call. 

Reading the forest

They “read the forest” as they sleuthed Mama’s location. They spotted “pug marks” (footprints) where you and I might only see a mess of gravel, grass, and mud. A sudden cry from a jungle fowl, a snapping of dried bamboo poles, a scream from a deer, a frenzy among the langurs. The animals are a chatty bunch. They alert each other to impending danger. While Swanand and the local guide quietly listened or exchanged information in Marathi, I listened for a Hindi or English word, trying to piece together their conversation.

Then, suddenly, there he was! Mama emerged from the tall grasses three car lengths away. He moved silently, threading its lithe body through the grasses. His grace, his agility, his confident countenance – he was too regal, frankly, for an audience of bumbling humans. It seemed apt that while we had all traveled enormous distances for a sighting of the maharaja, he spared us nary a glance.

Swanand had said that the rain last night would have washed away the scents tigers leave on trees to mark their territory – so they would be out today to re-spray. Delivering on the promise, there was Mama, sniffing, scratching, and spraying the tree under which sat a tiger’s crude likeness.

Mama

We had seen Mama’s name among many others – Shivani, Maya, Junabai, Veera – on the chalkboard in the lounge at Tadoba, every tiger spotted that day. We were told that Mama would be big and strong – but we didn’t know the meaning of that until we saw him in person, in the wild. Mama had recently trounced another tiger and laid claim to his territory. He exuded an authority you don’t see in captive animals.

But maybe this perspective betrays my perception of the relative danger/safety in Tadoba: Here, you are in tiger territory, sitting in an open jeep, with only the accelerator as your protection. You pray that the engine doesn’t fail you. The guides swear they haven’t lost a tourist yet, but still…

Mama had many trees to mark yet, and he started walking down the trail towards us. By now, a few more jeeps had arrived, and all of them made space for him. Some of us led the tiger, some followed. Swanand said Mama has grown up around jeeps and barely notices them. And indeed, he did seem only concerned with his own mission this morning – to mark and to hunt.

The hunt

Then Mama saw our gaur. A hushed excitement spread through the jeeps. The tiger, until now moving with leisurely purpose, switched to stealth mode, focused, deliberate, and taut. The gaur munched away. I thought his attendant birds might alert him, but they too seemed oblivious. 

“How exciting it would be,” my husband whispered, “exciting, bloody, and traumatic.”  We both wished for the hunt and dreaded it. 

Mama vanished behind some bamboo, but our guide knew he would be approaching his prey from downwind. He drove us around the other side to watch from a different angle. So did the other jeeps. More and more jeeps had arrived by now – too many, in fact.  I worried that their noise would foil the hunt, but the tiger really did seem unfazed. Maybe our guides were right.

But then, the gaur sensed something amiss. He jerked his head and started trotting away, taking his fleet of birds with him. Mama lost his nerve and his moment. His next meal would have to wait. I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief.

For a moment, the tiger went back to scratching and spraying trees. But soon, he stopped to drink from a muddy puddle while an entire lake just 100 feet away offered up its reed-filtered waters. He sat, caught his breath, recovered, and vanished into the forest.

What’s a fair price for killing?

A few hours later, we heard that Mama crossed the highway and killed a farmer’s calf. A guide showed us a video of Mama dragging its prey across the road, the kill almost too big to fit between his legs, making him waddle awkwardly. I couldn’t help but wonder if our presence hadn’t foiled Mama’s hunt earlier, might the calf’s life have been spared?

I can only imagine the farmer’s grief. That calf would have grown up to till the soil on his farm. In India, many farms are only an acre or two – too small to justify tractors, so bulls still do the hard work. The government will compensate this farmer 40,000 rupees (about 500 USD).  Of course, it won’t be enough. The compensation for a human is 25 lakhs (26,000 USD)… also a mere gesture. Anyway, what could be a fair price for a father, a mother, a child?

I told Swanand that in America, we have zero tolerance for animals killing humans. As soon as a wild animal harms a human, the animal is hunted down.  “Even if it’s the human’s fault?” he asked. “Yes, even then,” I said. 

In India, the response to attacks varies by region, influenced by state policies, local culture and politics, and the specifics of the incident. An agreeable compromise between humans and animals is a work in progress.

The complexity of conservation

On average, 45 people are killed by tigers every year in Chandrapur, the district in Maharashtra with Tadoba-Andhari. The total for the first three months is 14.  In fact, a villager was also killed that same day. He was in the forest gathering mahua flowers. The locals brew the flowers into alcohol. “It’s potent stuff,” Swanand said, holding his fingers two inches apart. “You only need this much.” And, he said, it leaves no hangover. 

The villagers are instructed to stay away from the forest before 10 am, as the animals are most active in early mornings. But it gets hot late mornings – and for their livelihood, they risk such animal encounters.

This episode points to the complexity of conservation. The locals depend on the forest for their firewood, as well as plants, fruits, medicines, and flowers like mahua. And a healthy animal population is paramount for a healthy forest. (Easiest example: predators like tigers keep grazers in check, preventing overgrazing and erosion). 

Many years ago, there were villages in the middle of what is now the core zone. As part of the tiger conservation effort, the government relocated several villages in 2013-14. The move was mutually beneficial, Swanand said, as both tigers and humans were getting battered in this territory war. 

Tiger tourism

The villagers also depend on tiger tourism for their livelihood. To give the local communities a stake in the conservation effort, the national park employs them as guides and drivers. It’s a synergistic arrangement. They have roamed the forests since they were young. They know this land and its creatures intimately, and they make excellent guides for visitors like us.

This visitor had had plenty of excitement watching even an attempted hunt.

That afternoon, we watched Shivani, a recent empty nester who might be
pregnant again, back her overheated body into a pond and nap in the water. The
sleeping cat was oddly mesmerizing. Maybe the jungle had already started
changing us. We couldn’t scroll our phones or take selfies — we just waited for a
flick of an ear, a twitch of a muscle. We had come here to look at tigers, but might
have glimpsed a new side of ourselves.

After an action-packed first safari, this was just the balm we needed.