Tigers in Ranthambhore National Park and Tiger Preserve

2/27/12

Each year the park expands and families and villagers are displaced.to make way for the necessary territory for the tigers that have grown to 2-3 years old and are venturing out on their own. This means that the as the government displaces villagers, as part of their compensation they are trained in handcraft skills by which they can made a new living for themselves as part of a cooperative. As for the tiger preserve there are actually no fences round it. This is because these particular tigers are not of the human-eating variety that are more prominent in the evergreen forests of South India. Ranthambhore is a semi-desiduous jungle area. Here if a tiger does kill a human being it is considered an accident. In the last two years there have been two human deaths by tigers. In one instance a village woman had unwittingly approached too close to where a tiger had hidden its kill. The tiger killed the woman to protect its food. In the other instance a farmer had been bent over in a field in what looked to the tiger like a four legged animal and the tiger attacked and killed the man. In neither instance was the tiger interested in the humans as food once they were killed. Both these deaths were considered accidental deaths!! The tigers are in significant danger from poachers – mostly contracted from China where the interest in tigers is such that their every part can fetch a high price including its bones. So the practice of burying tigers in the preserve – as a result of natural death  after an average of 16 or seventeen years, or as the result of a fight over territory - has in recent years been changed to cremation like the cremations I witnessed on the shores of the Ganges, to thwart the desecration/unearthing of graves. Another measure to protect the tigers and their habitat unlike in some other preserves is that now there are no transmitters attached to collars on the tigers. The collars while helping the naturalists and staff of the preserve, also made tiger spotting too easy and in many ways destructive of the habitat. Also if poachers were able to discover the transmitter frequency they of course could track the tigers much more easily too. This new way ensures a more balanced approach to preservation and observation. One in three tiger-spotting safaris might be successful. In my case the tigers (if at all interested) were watching us rather than the other way around :) What had been happening was that when poachers were found leaving the preserve with bones it was not easy to tell whether they had killed a tiger or had unearthed a tiger grave. If you are interested in more tales of the tigers in this park there is a documentary (Sorry I don't have its precise name) made and published that follows the story of two particular tigers named “Broken Tale” and “Nick.” While some tigers acquire a name over time the actual census of the tigers assigns each a number not a name. Four tigress territories make up one male tiger’s territory. In our unsuccessful tiger-spotting Safari were on the trail of one particular tigress, observing fresh tracks on the road.