A SECOND ROAR

FLASHBACK to 1988. Sariska Tiger Reserve saw its first registered poaching case. Among the 15 prime accused were three forest staff8212;Bimla Devi, a Grade IV employee in the Field Director8217;s office accused of misusing information from Headquarters, driver Badri Lal, and Flying Squad game watcher Nathi Lal. Though all three spent time in jail, they were finally discharged, with the Investigating Officer for the case being changed three times. Members of the SEC have told The Sunday Express that the remains of two tigers, a leopard skin and leopard bones were found in Devi8217;s possession.
In 2004, it was clear that something once again was wrong. Tiger sightings became rarer and rarer, and when the CBI started investigating in 2005 it found that there were links between the 1988 case and the 2004-5 poachings. The same poachers, with the same information, and links to notorious Delhi-based poacher Sansar Chand, were operating. The SEC report in 2005 pointed out that if the 1988 case had been reopened and probed further, perhaps 8220;Sariska would not have lost its tigers8221;. Other enquiries also found that there was a possible connivance between poaching in Sariska and poaching in Ranthambore8212;in the latter the SEC found a decline of 21 tigers between 2004 and 2005.
Many would feel that under the circumstances, Devi had lost the moral authority to work at one of India8217;s prime tiger reserves. Yet she continues in her old post in the Field Director8217;s office.
It is this kind of laxity and poor park management that mars the efforts of the state to protect its tigers. Though the tiger and tigress have been airlifted to a new home, little has changed on Ground Zero.

Tiger rush
Scientists and tiger conservationists believe that the Rajasthan Government has rushed into the tiger relocation project. The area for an enclosure for the airlifted tiger should have been as large as possible, a suggestion also made by the WII. However, in order to quickly construct the enclosures, two chain link enclosures of only a hectare each were made. Another concern was about tranquillising the animal in summer since this increases the body temperature. The relocation would have certainly been safer in the winters, says Tiger conservationist Ullas Karanath.
But the Rajasthan Government is at the fag end of its tenure and forest staff say that the pressure was high to move the tigers before the monsoon so that the Government, or so they say, could add another notch to its list of achivements. That8217;s the reason why the first tiger was flown in even during intermittent rainfall.
There are two highways that run through Sariska8212;State Highway 29A that goes from Sariska to Dausa, and State Highway 13 from Alwar to Jaipur. While the roads also ease accessibility for poachers, the second has a daily traffic of 2,000 vehicles. Way back in 2001, the NTCA gave the state a fund of Rs 3.5 crore to create a bypass for SH13. Though the bypass was built, there is no enforcement that makes it compulsory for vehicles to use it. One tiger has been killed earlier on this road, and other wild animals from the tiger reserve become roadkill even more frequently on this stretch.
When it was announced that the tigers were coming, there was a proposal that heavy vehicles be banned on this road. But the bone of contention seems to be Thanagazi, a tehsil close to Sariska. Shopkeepers and the local MLA, a Meena, are protesting that the closing of the highway to commercial vehicles will mean the end of their businesses.
8220;We are dependant on the road for our entire existence. We need to survive too. There is nothing else in Thanagazi except for these shops and this road,8221; says Himanshu Jain, a Thanagazi shopkeeper.
However, Chief Wildlife Warden R.N. Mehrotra asserts, 8220;We will shut the highway to commercial trucks and heavy vehicles soon.8221;
How soon is soon? Insiders say nothing will be enforced this election year.

Tourism that isn8217;t tiger friendly
When you enter the Sariska Tiger Reserve, you are given a well-handed-out, but never-read laminated card of rules. It says that cars inside the reserve should not exceed the speed limit of 30 kmph. They have to confine themselves to the main road and no one can step out of the vehicles. No one can sit on the top of a vehicle either. All the rules are broken. Many of the people who come to visit Sariska go to the Pandupole temple, 22 km from the main entrance and deep in the core area. Both Sariska and Ranthambore have temples located in the heart of the reserves.
The road to Pandupole does not have speed breakers along the entire stretch. Guards sit at only two points. Result: cars speed by, horns blaring, and people sit on the roofs of vehicles and stop for a picnic or for a drink as they please. Outside the Pandupole temple, there is a new board that reads 8220;Caution! This is re-introduced tiger area8221;. But this means nothing for those going to visit the temple, which is loudly advertised even by the Rajasthan Tourism Department. Pandupole temple gets about six lakh devotees every year, who all come calling in their vehicles. Worse, on two days of the week, Saturday and Tuesday, there is free entry into the park. The year that saw the tigers vanishing, 2004-5, recorded the entry of 23,238 vehicles 203,372 visitors with an additional 4,781 vehicles trundling in during festivals.
The tourism circuit seems ruthless and powerful: another popular temple near Sariska Tiger Reserve, Talvraksh, cheekily displays a tiger head next to what is considered to be a conch blown by the Pandavas.
A WII study says that tigers do not breed when disturbed. With the breeding season on, keeping the area disturbance-free for the two reintroduced tigers should have been of utmost priority. Evidently, the Rajasthan Government did not consider this important enough. It has not even finalised ways in which people will move within the reserve. One proposal moots a community CNG vehicle run by the government, while another says a bus should be contracted to a private operator. A third proposal says that convoys of vehicles should be allowed in.
Rajasthan has not submitted the proposal, and with so many voters visiting the temple, forest staff say they have to 8220;tread carefully on the delicate issue8221;.
In Ranthambore, there is even lesser urgency. Between 15 and 20 lakh people visit an ancient Ganesh temple in the core area. And tourists are on an upswing. In 1985, there were only 400 visitors per annum in other areas of the reserve. By 2005, there were 130,196.
There is a proposal to create state-run transport, but that is still in the proposal stage.

The poaching link
Both Ranthambore and Sariska have traditional poaching communities operating near the park. Sariska lost its last 8-10 tigers in the monsoon of 2004.
The monsoon, during which enforcement becomes difficult, is the period during which most poachers strike. In 2004 monsoon, there was no Field Director at the reserve between September 5 and November 7. The Deputy Conservator of Forests was also on leave for a month in this period. The Assistant Conservator of Forests was thus given charge for four months.
In this same period, Ranthambore lost an astounding 21 tigers. The CBI finally established crucial links between poaching in Sariska and poaching in Ranthambore. The SEC also found that many of the poachers were operating from Tonk, an area which is close to Ranthambore.
Perversely, the death of all the tigers in Sariska was an eye-opener. A red-alert was sounded in Ranthambore after the Government admitted in 2005 that there was indeed a poaching problem. In both the reserves, the Rajasthan Armed Constabulary and the Home Guard were brought in. Though nothing could help Sariska, there still is hope for Ranthambore.
8220;If it weren8217;t for the Sariska eye-opener, even Ranthambore might have lost its tigers,8221; says Rajpal Singh, SEC member.
This year, thankfully, there is a mounted sense of urgency in Sariska. Guidelines set by the NTCA declare that ex-army persons should be made part of the patrolling regime. Following this, Sariska has employed 62 former soldiers. For the first time, park authorities are talking to local communities living within the reserve to become a part of the patrol and help apprehend poachers. And both men and women have signed up. 8220;We are involving local communities here hoping they will inform us of suspicious persons. We will also scale up the number of ex-Army personnel. For the past two years, we have been setting up tents and nakas in all the sensitive areas,8221; says Sariska Park Director R.S. Somashekhar.
Ranthambore has deployed around 150 ex-Army people to guard its tigers. The park has the traditional Mongia poaching community, often armed with muzzle-loading guns, on the fringes of the park. The government has now set up a school for Mongia children.

Of cattle and cattle feed
Even though the tigers have been moved to Sariska, habitat protection is a huge issue.
There are 28 villages with a population of 12,000 people and about 35,000 heads of cattle inside the core area of the reserve. There are an additional 170 villages on the periphery of the park 1.5 lakh people and 2,75,000 cattle who are in some way dependent on the reserve. There is a thriving milk cake business which sources milk from around the periphery of the park. Though the tigers have landed, only one village has been moved so far, and two more villages, Umri and Kankwadi, will be relocated this year.
After the tiger, the biggest and most important predator of the forest, became locally extinct, the forest suffered ill effects. While the number of leopards went up8212;a Wildlife Institute of India survey tagged the number at 23.5-25 individuals per 100 sq km8212;the population of large ungulates, that is adult nilgai and sambar, also went up. Leopards cannot hunt such large animals and the loss of the tiger from the habitat began to show. Cattle, along with a large wild ungulate population, have led to overgrazing in large tracts of the forest.
Meanwhile the tiger remains vulnerable to poisoning by villagers if it preys on cattle.
In Ranthambore, the situation is worse. There are 11 villages situated on a corridor between Kela Devi and Ranthambore National Park within the Tiger Reserve, part of 42 villages within the reserve. There are an astounding 190 villages within 5 km of the sanctuary boundary and 96 villages within 2 km of the boundary. There is a plan to move 15 villages but clearly much more intervention is required.

The Ranthambore issue
Even though the Tiger Reserve spans 1,394 sq km, the tigers live only across 282 sq km8212;roughly 20 per cent of the park. That is because the core area, known as the Ranthambore National Park, is the best managed. 8220;Tigers are concentrated here as the habitat outside of the core area is not conducive for their survival, with a poor prey base and vegetation,8221; says tiger conservationist Belinda Wright, who is also in the SEC. There is only a thin corridor, across a river, which connects the Ranthambore core area and Kela Devi. But the core area has over 40 tigers now and has reached its carrying capacity. Tigers have been wandering out of Ranthambore core area, especially in the monsoon and currently, a tiger has crossed over to Kela Devi and another is rumoured to be in Madhya Pradesh8217;s Kuno Park.
But where will the tigers go? In the past, straying tigers faced tragic consequences. 8220;In 2004, a tiger strayed out of Ranthambore. It moved towards Chambal, crossed the ravines and moved to Kota, covering a distance of 200 km. Tragically, months later, it was mowed down by a train. There is an urgent need to create better corridors,8221; Wright says.
Rajpal Singh says that there is a proposal to include some more areas within Ranthambore. 8220;The Sariska poaching alert has made Ranthambore relatively safe and now we have to work on creating corridors,8221; he adds.