Big cat, bigger habitat

Faced with the monsoon rains and luxuriant vegetation, the Wildlife Institute of India had been hard at work trying to locate a suitable tigress. In order to catch the female, the WII team had been at Ranthambore for more than a week, and as it rained, the “healthy, breeding tigress” eluded, gracefully, both sighting and capture — a far cry from the terrified, healthy, breeding and terrestrial specimen that had to actually shin up a tree in order to escape being stoned in the Sunderbans.

With the tiger census released, everyone had an (obvious) opinion on the tiger. Down to 1,411 wild tigers from 3,600 five years ago, it was also obvious the tiger was losing out, horribly. From pregnant tigresses having to climb trees in order to elude mobs, to tiger skins being found in Kerala days after the census announced that tigers were dying because of “poaching and habitat destruction”, it seemed to add up to the simple fact that the magnificent sher, an object of adulation, immortalised on beer bottles, resorts, and all the trappings of Incredible India, was becoming just another weakling trampled by the Great Human Machine.

Until now, when the monsoons have come the tiger has been back in its perfect guise. That of the assiduously camouflaged predator, at ease in water and grassland, monsoon foliage and dry deciduous forest. The WII team was attempting to identify the Ranthambore tigress and collar some more animals.

Obstructed by rain and undergrowth, they were not being able to do either. It was only when the sun came out that they were able to capture the first tigress. But between the week-long attempts and the encompassing rain, for all those who have cherished the tiger as the enigma burning in the shadows of the night, there is reason to cheer.

For it shows the tiger can’t “just” be caught, and grand conservation designs which aim at capturing the perfect breeding animal can still be waylaid by the whims of the predator; that there is still unwearing reason to be in awe of this charismatic animal.

Though most conservationists point out that the best time to tranquillise and move such a big animal is in the winter, there is immense political will to implement and finish the project at a time when the Rajasthan government is set to end its tenure. When the rains came, the project became “unpredictable” with those associated with the project saying, “it’s difficult to catch a tiger”.

For poachers who capture and kill, it’s a matter of chance, a shot in the dark at any animal. In this country, you can kill a tiger for less than Rs100, with just some simple metal traps. This is the kind of poaching that has been going on at full swing. But to catch a tiger (in this case two tigresses and one tiger) that just about fits the bill is certainly a difficult task. The elusiveness of the animal is the reason why (though most of the country has been covered by the national tiger census) the Sunderbans, with its mangroves and treacherous swamps, has not yet had its tigers counted. And with the monsoon arriving, it is nearly impossible to conduct surveys there; the first estimates of tiger population can only come in after the winter.

The tiger can shrug off the monsoon, but we can’t. And the Sariska relocation plan shows us that man with his darts and guns cannot laugh at the tiger or the tigress yet.

neha.sinha@expressindia.com