Ranthambhore Tiger

In India, what we need to urgently create at all levels, is an eco-system that recognizes merit, also inculcates a mentality to spot and reward it. Another deficiency that grievously plagues our information resource base is our inadvertent but stark dismissal of informal and anecdotal knowledge as claptrap and bunkum, and I will tell you why.

A couple of weeks ago, just for a get-away, we drove to Ranthambhore to experience the Tiger Safari.

Spotting the Tiger is an art in itself, as this elusive creature is shy and shuns the human gaze. Besides, you cannot track it scientifically by following pug - marks, or sometimes by smell of its fresh urine, because most wildlife authorities in India, in the interest of ecology don’t allow such route improvisation to tourists. They demarcate tracks on which mechanized transport can move on, and tourist vehicles cannot deviate from such track. So spotting is often from very far, triggered by the warning calls of a sambhar, nilgai or a deer, and always while the tiger is walking, as moving objects are easier to detect.

Tiger tourists come from far and beyond, and hope and anticipation for sightings is writ as large on their faces, as the disappointment and despair after failing to do so.

I therefore was very intrigued by the fact, why the tiger is not collared with a radio device with which its location can be tracked – a practice well proven in Africa. This will immensely improve sightings and also help the conservationists in tracking this majestic beast, giving it a fillip to its own safety.

From local anecdotal knowledge I discovered something very interesting and something that would otherwise require years of grueling research and observation to establish, the tiger when mating grips the tigress round the neck and the collar hampers such gripping.

Path breaking work for the tiger-ecology has been done by foresters like Billy Arjun Singh, Kailash Sankala and Fateh Sinh Rathore.

The 400 sq kilometres of Ranthambhore Jungles were not so neglected as some other forests in the country, as they served as the game reserves for the Maharajas of Jaipur, due to sheer proximity with Jaipur, and were in some measure maintained for their recreational hunting.

Nevertheless, unless declared as a part of the Project Tiger in 1973, this ecology would have withered away, and the tiger would have succumbed to extinction by  poachers or vengeful villagers.

Today from near extinction, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve has a healthy population of about 60 tigers and is poised to rise.

Admittedly, the single largest contribution to the tiger-ecology of Ranthambore was made by Fateh Sinh Rathore. This handle-bar moustachoued forester had a critical role to play in the preservation of the Ranthambhore park. He understood, if this majestic beast with such exquisite mien that makes all other look gauche in front of it, had to be preserved, habitation in the precincts of the forest must be relocated.

And this he did not by the power of fiat, but by that of persuasion, by the zeal of a reformer, by convincing the villagers of how the tiger was integral to their habitat, and source of their sustenance.

The Star Male captured on my Cannon 400 mm Lens

Few facts about the tiger while lesser known were well understood by Fateh. He had, in his long days of tracking tigers as a Forest Officer, realized that the Tiger, contrary to common belief, was not a nocturnal animal. It probably came out in the night only because it wanted to avoid contact or confrontation with man. He also observed, while generally believed to be strictly territorial, sometimes it acted in packs like the lions. This knowledge of behavioral patterns of the tiger helped  Fateh to lay the foundation of a sustainable tiger ecology. A beast that hunts not by chasing but ambush, cannot live in a habitat denuded of trees and bushes, it is these trees and bushes that provide him the ambush. If it was appearing in the night, it was not because it was nocturnal, but because during the day, there was too much human activity within the forest.

Fateh, true to his name, an indefatigable fighter for the rights of the tiger, while on one hand, relentlessly liaised with the government and his own department, for allocation of funds and resources to revive the Tiger park, on the other, he embarked on a crusade to educate the villagers on aspects of health and ecology.

Today, his son, a medical doctor by training, but a forester at heart, and pretty much the alter ego of his father, runs a resort called Khem Vilas sprawled over a 25 acre of once barren land, now verdant from the last 20 years of toil and labor of his family. Run and managed by Usha Rathore, his daughter in-law, it is a boutique property tucked away in the desert yet ensconced in green.   

I exhort all my friends to tour all Tiger reserves so that there is desire from the government and people to preserve them.