While experts dither over
corridor viability, Rajasthan tigers end three decades of isolation by following
the rivers to MP
It was Jaipur, late 2007. A few
months before the PMO cleared the plan to fly in tigers to Sariska from
Ranthambhore, an IAS officer was holding forth on the subject at a private
function. “Let’s build a corridor for tigers; 100-metre wide. How much land
(do) we require? It’s not even 200 km between the two forests,” he said, clearly
exasperated by the delay.
Just 140 km, a colleague assured him,
and generously proposed that the width of the passage be doubled: “We’ll put
trees and all. It will be fenced and safe.” The enthusiasm was infectious till
a senior forest officer jumped in to play spoilsport.
As forests get fragmented due to
rapid incursion of roads, railways, mines, cropland or settlements, maintaining
connectivity and therefore healthy gene flow among small wild populations is
becoming more challenging than ever. More so, because the popular perception of
a wildlife corridor, particularly to those in the corridors of power, is
indistinguishable from say, freight corridors.
The term corridor gives an impression
of linearity. But animals seldom move like crows fly. The shortest course we
chart out for tigers at official meetings and even in research papers may not
suit them at all. The route may not have enough water sources or vegetation
cover in which they can sneak around. Or it may be just too crowded.
For many years now, experts and
officials have been wondering how to make the 2-4 km stretch between
Ranthambhore national park (RNP) and Keladevi wildlife sanctuary (KWLS) – both
part of the Ranthambhore tiger reserve (RTR) but separated by the Banas river –
a safe animal corridor so that tigers from the national park can populate the
sanctuary.
The ravine wilderness that connects
RNP and KWLS is being flattened for agriculture by local villagers who have
established several hamlets to manage their new cropland. Though ecologically
vibrant, ravines are classified as wasteland, reclamation of which is
officially encouraged. Illegal sand mining on several stretches along the Banas
further choke this passageway. Unsurprisingly, of the 50-odd Ranthambhore
tigers, only one is settled in KWLS, crowded by dozens of villages and their
livestock.
But while the close proximity of RNP
and KWLS makes restoring connectivity look feasible, any prospect of reviving the
Ranthmbhore-Kuno corridor has long been written off. Tigers from Rajasthan and
Madhya Pradesh mated frequently till the trans-Chambal connectivity snapped
three decades ago. While Kuno remained connected to other MP forests,
Ranthambhore became an island, hemming in its then population of 14 tigers.
The numbers have multiplied almost four-fold
in RNP since. But the only way the Ranthambhore tigers can escape disastrous
consequences of inbreeding is through revival of the gene flow from MP. But
nobody gave the lost corridor a chance. Once the resident tigers of Kuno were
poached, it was readied for lions from Gujarat. When Narendra Modi refused to
oblige, the focus shifted to reintroducing cheetahs from Africa.
Between RTR and Kuno, the mighty
Chambal river forms the boundary between Rajasthan and MP. In this stretch,
five Rajasthan rivers – Mez, Chakan, Kharad, Kundli and Banas -- join the Chambal
from the north. Another six tributaries – Kalisindh, Parbati, Seep, Param, Doni
and Kuno – reach from the south.
Dispersing tigers prefer to keep to watercourses.
Each of these meandering rivers connects RNP to neighbouring forests. Along the
Chambal axis, Chakan, Kharad and Kundli lead to Sawai Mansingh sanctuary while
Mez offers passage to Ramgarh Bishdhari forests. Kalisindh is the access to
Darrah sanctuary while Parbati reaches the forests of Baran district. Kuno and
Param rivers pass through the Kuno sanctuary while Doni and Seep flow in the
larger Kuno landscape.
In the recent past, Ranthambhore
tigers have travelled far and wide – Kota, Bharatpur and Mathura – as the rivers
flow. There was no reason why they, if their nerve held, would not reach Kuno
in MP. In fact, quite a few floaters – the last one in 2010 -- ventured south
inside MP across the Chambal but eventually moved back to Rajasthan.
So, many considered it a fluke when a
Ranthambhore male (T38) walked out of RNP’s Sultanpur area in late 2010 and
reached Kuno in January 2011. The itinerary is sketchy but T38 walked
south-east to cross the Banas and spent two weeks in a patch of ravine forest
before crossing the Chambal at its confluence with Param and then followed the
river upstream to reach the heart of Kuno. It was a leisurely journey, with
many stopovers and kills.
Yet, T38 was merely considered lucky,
till a sub-adult tiger decided to match his skills last month. One of the
three cubs of T26, the young male left RNP’s Khandar area on 23 January. It
reached the Banas the next day and apparently sensing mining activities to its
right, turned left along the river, crossed a couple of roads, and climbed atop
the hills of KWLS using the only available pass by 26 January. Unimpressed by
the mess inside Keladevi, it charted its course down to the Chambal river and
across to MP in the next five days.
Here, its intuition took over again and
it chose to follow the Kuno river southward. Parallel to the Chambal, runs a
12-feet deep irrigation canal which briefly goes inside a tunnel while passing
over the Kuno river. The tiger reached the other side of the canal walking
under this tunnel on 5 February and, as if to reward himself, made its first
kill in MP soon after.
Then it slowed down in the comfort
zone of reserve forests south of Kuno sanctuary that offer ample feral cattle.
The tiger has made three more kills since and is not showing any urgency to head
southward along the river. It has already walked at least 80 km, more than the
linear distance between RNP and Kuno, without being spotted even once and is a day’s
walk away from joining predecessor T38 inside the sanctuary.
Unlike T38 in 2011, T26 junior is
being tracked daily by the forest departments of the two states with the help
of TigerWatch, a Ranthambhore NGO, and village wildlife watchers appointed for
the task. Tired of waiting for lions, and now cheetahs, the guards at Kuno sound
both excited and nervous to be hosting tigers again. Veterans, who still
remember Kuno’s last tigers, are wary of poachers even as they pray that the
next Ranthambhore crossover is a female.
The remarkable journeys of the
Ranthambhore duo have three lessons for us. The wild does not need handholding
and knows what it is up to. The river courses, and the surrounding ravines,
must be secured and monitored for tiger migration. Every tiger in transit needs
rigorous tracking to avoid poaching or conflict.
Meanwhile, with RNP finally having
surplus tigers and habitats not improving in KWLS, dispersal of cats outside
the reserve will continue. As a bunch of cubs get ready to break free in the
coming months, Kuno is likely to welcome a few more tigers, hopefully females
this time, from Ranthambhore.
Once the settlers start breeding in
Kuno, young tigers will eventually venture further south inside MP to find
partners or perhaps individuals from MP’s northernmost tiger pockets will come
checking at Kuno. With time, the reverse wild traffic will hit Ranthambhore,
carrying fresh genes to Rajasthan in many decades.
If only we take cue from the tiger
instead of deciding for it.
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