Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava - The tiger is dead. Long live the tiger
While the world clamours and strives mightily to save this magnificent animal, India, with the largest population of tigers in the wild, continues to devour them with frightening regularity. Down To Earth tracks down the horror as it unfolds in the badlands of Corbett where, in one week in May-June this year, three tigers died. In one and half years, India's premier tiger reserve, the pride of its wildlife tourism industry, has been the graveyard of 32 tigers. What ails Corbett and many other similar parks in our country? The magazine digs deeper and comes up with a tale that stinks to high heavens. A tale in which bureaucrats and political satraps rule the roost, making hay while the park bleeds. They claim allegiance to some of the most powerful political families of the country, and maybe - just maybe - can get away with murder because of that.
Read more: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/
IT was a hot May evening. Near the south-eastern border of Corbett Tiger Reserve, Gopal was busy lopping off branch after green branch for his cattle to eat at night. His hands moved fast—a tiger reserve is not the place to be caught alone when night falls. Just as the 16-year-old boy neared the stream close to Patrani village, a stench overpowered his senses. The disgusting smell was coming from a pile of dry branches. Curious, Gopal peeped under the branches. Belonging to the grazier community of the Himalayas, Van Gujjar, he has grown up on gruesome stories of mountain beasts. But nothing could have prepared him for what he saw that evening. A rotten, stinking pile of flesh, with patches of black- and-yellow-striped skin, lay before his eyes. Maggots slithered out of the gaping hollow which must have been a tiger’s mouth once. Gopal lost no time in informing the village forest guard about what he just saw.
The guard, in his liquor-induced stupor, could barely comprehend what the boy said. But by next morning, on June 1, word had spread like fire about yet another tiger death near the reserve. This was the third tiger carcass to have been found in Corbett in a week. Two more decomposed tiger bodies had been recovered from around the reserve boundary between May 27 and June 1.
On May 27, a fully decomposed carcass of a three-year-old tigress was recovered from the bushes on the bank of a seasonal river in the Dhela range just inside the boundary of the reserve. The body appeared to have been lying there for five to six days. Just two days later, a half-decomposed body of a fully grown tiger, aged six-seven years, was found near a sot (water body) in Sanwaldeh village in Ampokhra range of Terai West Forest Division. The spot, though outside the reserve boundary, was hardly seven kilometres from where the first carcass was found. The body seemed to have been decomposing for three-four days.
FIGHT THEORY
Van Gujjars from the settlement where the first tiger carcass was found say the tigers have died after a fight. They talk of hearing the growl of tigers fighting on May 22 evening. “It seemed the tigers were fighting right behind our huts. We shouted and flashed torches to scare them away. Later, I informed the forest staff on phone about the probable fight between tigers,” says Ghulam Nabi, a Van Gujjar.
The forest staff confirms this. “It was too late in the night when we got the call. We decided to patrol the area for wounded tigers in the morning. For the next three days we patrolled the entire range but could not find the tigers,” says a forest guard. “It seemed the tigers went far away from our range after the fight.”
This does not sound implausible. Tigers are territorial animals and with a density of 9.4 tigers per sq km, territorial fights are common in Corbett. There are, however, certain aspects of the tiger-fight story that make it far from credible. The first carcass was found lying less than 500 metres from a forest check post four days after the so-called fight. If forest staff had patrolled the area why could they not find the wounded tigress? A conservationist who was present at the site when the carcass was recovered says there were hardly any wound marks visible on the carcass to suggest a fight. Another unanswered question is: if there was a fight, where is the other wounded tiger?
The forest staff, in its defense, suggests the third carcass spotted by Gopal could be of the other tigress. It probably fought with the first one and went towards Patrani and eventually succumbed to wounds. But it is rare that both tigers die after a fight. Most territorial disputes are settled through posturing or fights. And if the third animal did die after the fight, who hid the carcass under the bushes? If it had been rotting there for six days how come guards from the watch tower failed to notice it? The fact that all the three carcasses were found near Van Gujjar settlements led to quick conclusion of the community’s involvement.
“Lightening does not strike at the same spot thrice in a day,” says a visibly perplexed Samir Sinha, who had joined as the director of the Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand barely a week before the mysterious deaths. He is sure the tigers have not died a natural death and claims foul-play.
SERIAL DEATHS
While the number of tigers in the reserve and surrounding forests has increased from 164 in 2008 to 214 in 2010—these forests now boast the world’s highest tiger density—the spate of tiger deaths since the last census has given a dark twist to the much-hyped conservation story of the Corbett. At least 32 tigers have died in Corbett in the past two-and-a-half years.
The forest administration had tried to play down the incidents in the past, saying a few natural deaths every year are not a cause for concern considering the tiger population density in the reserve. But even the records of the National Tiger Conservation Authority show only 11 of the 32 tigers died of natural reasons or because of poaching...
Read more: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/
