I always wanted to see tigers in the wild. When I saw one, I have revised this desire to “I want to see tigers in the wild from a very very safe distance.”

Our gang of four were on a mission to collect information about wild elephants in Madi, Chitwan. We were going door to door and asking locals on losses caused by the elephants, probable causes, their preventive measure, and so on. Then, we heard about a tiger killing an ox.

The date was 28 October of 2013. After we heard of the killings, we went off in bikes to see it ourselves. The path was actually river bank of Ganger Khola. It took us about half an hour to reach the site of depredation. There was a single house typical Nepali house on edge of the forest. The nearest house was another single house on the other side of the river. The tiger had come inside the cowshed, killed two oxen and dragged one over a ledge of about 10 feet inside tall grasses. From over the ledge, we could clearly see the dead ox.

As students of wildlife, we were enthusiastic about examining the kills. Bravely, we set to examine it with other villagers. Forming a single line of 13-15 healthy, brave men (just not right in the head), we entered the tall grasses without any thought of tiger. I was at the rear end of the line. Then I heard it. The tiger roared no more than 10 feet away from me. I moved my head to its direction, saw its enormous mouth stretched and I ran. Usain Bolt is the fastest man today. I swear, I was the fastest man that day. I slipped, regained my balance and kept running. Within seconds, I had crossed the grass, climbed over the ledge and was with other more villagers. My heart was racing. My mind was blank.

I didn’t realize, I had run without thinking. I can’t outpace a tiger. I simply can’t. But I had run. People over the ledge had got a good view of the tiger crossing the river in a single leap. Another friend had seen the tiger move. Nobody else entering the grasses had seen the tiger. I hadn’t seen it myself till it roared and it was merely about 10 feet away from me. Tigers are really super camouflaged.

Human-tiger conflict is not new. It has been happening from over a long time. We cannot end it but we certainly can manage them more efficiently [1]. Tigers are looked at negatively because of two main reasons 1. Livestock depredation and 2. Attacks on human [2]. Livestock depredation can be mitigated with compensation schemes and by keeping prey base intact. Incidents of death by tigers have been increasing steadily as our forest regenerate and tigers populate the same areas exploited by people [3].  Not all tigers that kill humans become man-eaters. Jim Corbett explained the reason for tigers becoming man-eater as wounds in 90% of the time and old age for the rest [4]. We can harness technology to identify and monitor these tigers. Connecting forests with corridors will let tigers disperse to areas with healthy prey base avoiding conflicts. Sometimes, conflict happen because people fail to take cautions as we did then. We humans are wonderful species. We can and we have found innovative solutions to our problems. We can find a solution that will be beneficial for both species. But, we need to act now. We can’t wait and let another magnificent species go extinct simply because we refused to acknowledge our responsibility.

References

[1]      M. D. Madhusudan, “Living amidst large wildlife: Livestock and crop depredation by large mammals in the interior villages of Bhadra Tiger Reserve, south India,” Environ. Manage., vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 466–475, 2003.

[2]     P. Wegge, S. K. Yadav, and B. R. Lamichhane, “Are corridors good for tigers Panthera tigris but bad for people? An assessment of the Khata corridor in lowland Nepal,” Oryx, pp. 1–11, Oct. 2016.

[3]     B. Gurung, J. L. D. Smith, C. McDougal, J. B. Karki, and A. Barlow, “Factors associated with human-killing tigers in Chitwan National Park, Nepal,” Biol. Conserv., vol. 141, no. 12, pp. 3069–3078, Dec. 2008.

[4]     J. Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon, Second. Oxford University Press, 1944.