Project: Tiger
“These pug marks are fresh,” said our guide. “Yuvaraj must be nearby.”
“Is that his name?,” I asked.
“Yes, it’s a male tiger, about 5 years old. And like all tigers, he hunts alone. He likes walking on the pagdundee (foot road) as it’s easier than walking through the brush.
“Yuvaraj is indifferent to the vehicles around him. Not like some of the new tigers.
“But why don’t they attack vehicles?” I asked.
“As long as your are in the Gypsy, the tiger thinks of it as a larger animal. Over time, they have realized that the vehicles are harmless, so they ignore them. But if you step out of the vehicle, they would sense a change and chase you.
That was not a risk we wanted to take, so we waited patiently for the guide to track the tiger.
Kanha — land of the tiger
We were in the Sarhi zone of the Kanha National Park.
Kanha, nestled in the Satpura range, was first declared a reserve forest in 1889 and then a national park in 1955. It was designated a tiger reserve in 1973.
Kanha is spread over 940sq km, 80% of which is off limits for tourists. The remainder 20% is split across 4 zones and has a network of jungle pagdundees that authorized jeeps can drive on.
We were in one such jeep, peering through the early morning mist at the pugmarks.
“How did the name Kanha come about?” I asked.
“There are many stories. One traces it to being a derivative of the black soil here that’s called Kanheri. Another states that there was a village here who’s headman was blind in one eye (kanna in Hindi). As others kept asking the way to the kanna village, the name came to be Kanha. And then, there’s the story that it’s named after the Hindu God Krishna (affectionately called Kanha in Hindi).
“In any case, the villages inside the protected area were moved to the buffer zone or outside. There were facing conflicts. And their livestock used to graze in the grasslands, which meant there was less for deer and other natural prey for the tigers. This reduced their population and was a threat to the tigers’ survival. Shifting human settlements out made an enormous difference and the local fauna has flourished.
We were still following the pugmarks, and by now, had driven deep into the forests.
“It’s been colder the last two days,” said our guide, zipping his jacket. “See, the drops that are falling on you are not rain, they are forming from the mist due to the cold.”
We nodded as we sunk into our blankets further. It was near freezing, so our resort had thoughtfully sent along thick blankets we could use in the jeeps.
“There, see, fresh droppings,” said the guide and gestured for silence.
“Do you hear the alarm calls by the monkeys?”
We strained to hear them.
“Kanha’s langurs cry out when they spot a tiger. Do you know who are considered good friends in the jungle?” he asked Little Rey.
Little Rey didn’t move much from under the blanket and didn’t volunteer an answer.
“Langurs and spotted deer, also called chital,” he said.
“Tigers hate the langurs. They are the eyes of the jungle and cry out loud to warn other langurs and deer when tigers are nearby. A tiger can wait mid-stride for a half-hour stalking a deer, just ready to pounce, and suddenly be spotted by a nearby langur. The deer sprints off at the langur’s cry, and the tiger has to start again.
“If the tiger finds a langur on the ground, it will seize it by the neck and thrash it on the ground, as if taking vengeance.
“Wait,” he told the driver. “Stop. Look there at the spotted deer. Do you see its horns?”
“It’s a few months after the mating season (Aside: it’s called rutting season for ruminants like deer). The males discard their antlers and grow fresh ones each year. When the antlers are fresh, they are covered with soft velvet. The deer cannot fight each other yet. They will scrape the material on tree bark when the horns are fully grown.
“What happens to the discarded horns?” I asked.
“At first, the villagers used to collect them. In fact, the forest department built a huge arch of antlers a few years ago with all the horns they had gathered.
“But no one collects them now. They are an important part of the food cycle. They get eaten by pregnant does looking for extra calcium and are a favorite snack of the porcupines.
“Not just chital, there are other deer here. The largest deer species in India is here — the sambar deer- as it the magnificent barasingha (Swamp deer), called so because their horns branch out into different spikes.
We spied a sambar prying off the velvet on its horns, and some barasingha on our drive, but no tiger.
“Not just tigers, there are leopards, jackals, and wild dogs (called dhol) which are also predators here. It’s difficult spotting leopards though- they are cunning hunters and lift their catch onto trees. In fact, their bite is much stronger than the tiger as they must lift their prey up. But they’re much smaller than tigers, so never confront one.
“Wild dogs though, hunt in packs. There are a few in Kanha now, and they often hunt the chital.
“And all of these scavenge too,” he remarked. “Tigers, leopards, jackals, wild dogs — if they can steal meat from what another animal has hunted, they will. They’re not fussy eaters that way.”
“Are there any animals that the predators fear to hunt?”
“Well, they don’t hunt porcupines as their quills can seriously injure the predators' paws. And once you’re seriously injured, you can’t hunt prey like deer.
“And they don’t take on adult gaur (the Indian Bison). Gaur are massive — weighing almost a tonne. Even tigers fear them, and when hungry, only try and prey on young gaur.
The conversations, though interesting, couldn’t mask our disappointment. Despite spotting the pugmarks, we hadn’t spotted the tiger yet. Our guide and driver exchanged notes with other jeeps, but no one got lucky yet.
“He will be somewhere nearby,” said the guide. “A male tiger has an area of about 12 sq km where he hunts. The area usually has 3–4 females as well, each of which hunt in a 3 sq km area.”
“And the pug marks,” I asked. “Are they from the same tiger?”
“We stopped using pugmarks to identify unique tigers. There was too much confusion. Nowadays, the forest department uses cameras and forest rangers who roam the grounds on elephants to take stock of tigers.
Which was all good, but we hadn’t…
“There,” cried someone from a nearby gypsy. “A tiger!”
And there he was. Yuvaraj, the majestic tiger, walking nonchalantly as jeeps lined up in front of and behind him.
After a few min, he stepped into the nearby undergrowth.
But the sighting inspired our guide.
“Quick,” he cried to the driver. “Let’s go that way.”
We drove down an alley and waited.
“He will come down that way and cross the road. Tigers take the same path daily”
We waited for a few minutes, and yes.. he did walk across.
After that, our guide said, “You got lucky. There are many safaris where we come close, but never actually spot the tiger.”
Well, what do we say, but yes to that? It’s thrilling to spot a tiger in the wild. Project Tiger was a success for us.
