Dangerous liaisons

At Munnar8217;s picturesque Kundale Club one often sees a unique sight late in the evening: a small herd of gaur grazing placidly on the go...

At Munnar8217;s picturesque Kundale Club one often sees a unique sight late in the evening: a small herd of gaur grazing placidly on the golf course, unmindful of passers-by.

With their fearsome horns and massive build, these bovines are invincibility personified which perhaps explains their nonchalance and fearlessness. Indeed they can be vicious at times.

Several years ago, in a savage attack, a gaur fatally gored an estate worker who unknowingly walked into it in fading light.

Last year a National Geographic team had a scary encounter with one near the Eravikulam National Park. And more recently a colleague8217;s car was held up by a temperamental gaur for almost fifteen minutes on the Munnar-Marayoor road.

For some inexplicable reason, it stood rooted in the middle of the road, refusing to budge. It eventually moved off only after a truck appeared.

Then a few months ago while driving down to Coimbatore I chanced upon a bull gaur in a tea field just outside Munnar. Hoping to get a better view of it, I got out of the car; whereupon the bull snorted and rushed towards me, tossing its head menacingly from side to side. I fled to the safety of the car 8212; and then discovered what had angered the bovine.

Unwittingly, I had approached too close to a pair of gaur calves grazing unnoticed right in front of me, their heads hardly visible above the tea bushes!

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Further proof of the gaur8217;s moodiness came when I was trout-fishing the other day. As we picked our way through the scrub jungle skirting the stream, my guide kept tapping on the tree trunks with his bill-hook.

This, he explained, was intended to alert any gaur snoozing in the undergrowth, for a startled gaur can be quite nasty. It was a sensible precaution. For suddenly we heard a guttural snort and found a gaur 8212; whom we had disturbed 8212; glaring at us balefully from behind a clump of lantana. We hared back.

Once I came across a truly daring close-up of a herd of gaur clicked by Bertie Suares, a vibrant young planter, conservationist and wildlife photographer.

As Bertie himself told me, risking his life he had crept right up to the herd under cover of some tea bushes, snapped his picture from hardly ten metres away and bolted. His prize-winning photograph graced the front cover of his company8217;s prestigious house-journal. As did another dramatic snapshot of a gaur at Kundale Club 8212; irked by the light of his flash, the animal all but chased Bertie!

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With his abiding commitment to wildlife conservation, three months ago Bertie was personally helping forest officials in the Nilgiris to rescue a bull gaur that had blundered into a water tank.

As the distraught bovine emerged from the tank, it suddenly charged at Bertie, gored him and tossed him aside. The unprovoked attack was vividly captured by a video-cameraman from a popular TV channel. Sadly, a month later Bertie succumbed to his grievous injuries. He was just 41.

If only the animal had been tranquilised, this tragedy could have been averted.