Big cat is fair game

Without science, money and mandate won't save the tiger

The Times Of India (edit, pg 22) March 21, 2009

In this age of notoriously short public memory, it is good news for conservation that the tiger issue is still alive in the media. But even after so much media outcry for so long, the tiger still makes only sad headlines. Why only the media, some of the country's mightiest institutions Parliament, Supreme Court, the Prime Minister's Office and CBI have devoted unusual attention to the tiger since the 2005 Sariska expose. But too many big cats officially 39 in the last three years are still getting killed.

So, why is our conservation story still a mess despite all the attention and resources? Maybe most of us who are supposed to fix it don't know how. Consider how we handle so-called maneaters. Be it Tadoba, Sunderbans or Corbett, the administrative response to conflict is usually ad hoc and much of the media coverage just provocative. In most cases after an attack, the media and the local officials hastily label the tiger a maneater, make people panic and together hound the top authorities who, in turn, save their skin by issuing orders to capture or kill the "beast".

The danger and excitement associated with maneaters can make many jump the gun (or pen). But how can we expect even the more sensible forest officers and reporters to act responsibly if they have no knowledge of tiger behaviour? Ironically, it does not take too much to be reasonably sure about the nature of an animal attack.

I was in Corbett in June 2005 when an attempt was made to dub a tigress a maneater after an attack on a mess worker in the Dhikala complex. It made for a fascinating story. The tigress with her four semi-adult cubs used to come looking for scavenging animals near a garbage dump where Dhikala mess workers disposed of kitchen leftovers. One night, a mess worker returned to his quarter late. As he bent over to unlock his hutment door, a tiger pounced on him. His screams made his colleagues rush to the spot and the tiger scampered, leaving the man badly injured.

This triggered a rumour of a maneater tigress roaming free around Dhikala. The tourist rush to the lodging complex reached an all-time high. A curfew would be imposed daily at seven in the evening and forest patrol parties guarded the complex through the night. During the investigation, it became clear that the tigress was not to blame. One of her cubs had mistaken the mess worker for prey. The tiger could not break the victim's neck, indicating that the animal was one of the inexperienced cubs. The Corbett authorities did not buckle under pressure and no attempt was made to capture or kill the tigress. No subsequent attack was reported.

In contrast, the tiger that recently attacked a woman in Corbett was promptly tracked down and packed off to a zoo. But for a central intervention that irked a number of Uttarakhand officials, it would have been shot dead. Similarly, in defiance of biological indicators, the Uttar Pradesh forest department's response to five so-called maneaters was determined by assumptions, media hype and public pressure. When the Centre forced the state to revoke arbitrary shoot-at-sight orders, it triggered a turf war. Not long ago in Tadoba, officials shot down a wrong tiger a robust male to placate angry villagers demanding elimination of a tigress accused of serial attacks. Bandhavgarh also lost a couple of so-called maneaters to zoos, no questions asked.

Mindless killing or trapping of big cats has become almost a seasonal routine in Sunderbans where simple steps like effective crowd management could avoid many human injuries and allow safe passage to most tigers caught in the middle of people. Many consider it a major triumph for conservation if they can avoid shooting down a so-called maneater and instead rescue it to a zoo.

A zoo tiger may sound better than a dead tiger, but in terms of ecological loss, both amount to one tiger less in the wild. The same misconception prompts opinion-makers to argue that the tiger will survive extinction only if people have economic incentive to farm the animal. Conservation is not about raising a million tigers in ranches but about letting a few thousands be in the wild, where at the top of the food chain they protect the ecology of forests that, in turn, ensure our water security.

But why blame amateurs when many of our forest bosses are not scientific managers but merely bureaucrats? The latest flashpoint between the Rajasthan forest department and the Centre involved the relocation of a third tiger from Ranthambhore to Sariska. The Centre had instructed the state to pick up one of the floaters, young tigers still looking to establish territories. Shifting a resident tiger upsets not only the uprooted animal but also the rest of the resident population. But the state bosses chafed since getting hold of a suitable floater required rigorous tracking. Soon, the media was quoting unnamed sources to blame the Centre for delaying the relocation process.

The fault, indeed, lies in the fundamentals. No amount of political will or funds can turn the tide in the absence of a professional, informed management. A little homework will harm no one, and certainly not the media.

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist and film-maker.