Inconvenient Truths

‘Saving the tiger means saving every living organism’ – is not an easy maxim to follow. Dr. Johnsingh takes us through the facts and figures of the battle for tiger conservation in order to find a lasting resolution.

- Dr. A.J.T. Johnsingh

I am fortunate to narrate four incidents in my life which clearly showed that the tiger is a largehearted gentleman. It can also be called a shy species, which likes to avoid humans even in trying situations. All four happened in South India, three in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve while I was doing my dhole research in 1976-78, and the fourth one on the banks of the Moyar River in the Sigur Range on 4th November 2009.

MY ENCOUNTERS WITH TIGERS

Once, a tigress with two caracal-sized cubs were encountered at the turning of a road. The mother, coming out of a lantana-patch, roared and charged from a distance of c. 20 m. I was stooping down and walking looking for signs on the road. The roar felled me to the ground and the tigress went back as fast as it had charged. Forester Jeyandrappa, arriving behind me, witnessed this. On another occasion, while silently walking with two of my tribal assistants along the bank of a narrow nallah looking for kills, I suddenly saw the head of a large tiger emerging from the bushes on the other side of the nallah, hardly 6 m. from me. I turned around to alert my colleagues and looked again to see that the tiger had disappeared as silently as it had come. Hearing us walking over the leaf-litter, it must have assumed we were prey.

At another time, I saw a tiger going from one patch of lantana to another. To take a picture of the tiger in the gap between the two patches, I ran and sat at the base of a tree in the middle of the gap. But the tiger had seen me and using the cover of an earthen