Tracking the Big Cats

Tigers are making frequent forays into urban areas around Bhopal, but thankfully there have been no human or feline casualties —so far

- Rahul Noronha

At around 4 pm, as they usually do on most days, Gitali Mehra and her son Siddharth left for their farm near Kerwa Dam, some 5 km from their house in Chunabhatti, a relatively new residential neighbourhood in South Bhopal. As Siddharth, who was driving, took a sharp turn near the Kaliasot reservoir, he was forced to a halt by a traffic jam caused by a number of cars and buses parked haphazardly on the road. The kids on a school-bus looked excited and seemed to be pointing at something some distance away. There, about 40 yards from the road, was sprawled a male tiger, licking his paws, perhaps after a fulfilling meal of the hind section of a bullock that was lying next to him. The tiger—and the traffic jam it had caused—sat there for about an hour before the local forest department patrol arrived and asked everyone to leave.

This scene did not play out in one of the famed tiger reserves of Madhya Pradesh, but on a road about 4 km away from a prominent residential area in a state capital. Accounts of tigers being sighted by everyday folk—school and college students and picnickers—close to residential areas in this part of Bhopal are now appearing with alarming frequency. The forest department is finding it tough to keep man and animal away from each other, and for the moment, there seems to be no solution in sight.