Tiger vs Lion Fight

Tigers fight to the death!

2011-12-20T09:32:00.001-08:00

Tigress dies after clash with daughter in Rajkot zoo

2011-12-17T09:50:00.000-08:00

Tigress dies after clash with daughter in Rajkot zoo

RAJKOT: In a weird incident, a mother tigress died after clashing with her own daughter in Rajkot Zoological Park on December 13.

Tigress Sidhdhi had given birth to three cubs Pruthvi, Bhoomi and Dharti in Vadodara zoo, where she was sent for breeding in November 2002. On June 18, 2010, Sidhdhi along with Bhoomi was brought back to Rajkot zoo. Sidhdhi had also given birth to a female cub Dhara in April, 2011.

At around 6 pm, Sidhdhi and Bhoomi suddenly started fighting, which left the mother tigress' spinal cord badly injured. She succumbed after some time.

According to zoo superintendent R K Hirpara, the postmortem conducted by two veterinary officers confirmed that she died due to spinal cord injury.

Twelve-year old Sidhdhi was born on March 14, 1999, in Aji zoo in Rajkot.

Bandhavgarh's tigers are camera friendly

2011-12-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

Bandhavgarh's tigers are camera friendly

They say no two tiger sightings are the same. Yet, for those who’ve missed seeing on the elusive animal during earlier outings or are looking to catch a glimpse for the first time, the dense forests of Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh seem a safe bet to start from.

Home to the highest density of tigers in India, these forests have gained popularity for their high and repeated tiger sightings. The only other national park that comes close in regards to the frequency of sightings is Ranthambore in Rajasthan.

Interestingly, authorities at Bandhavgarh have devised a good method to ensure that the impact of tourism is low on the core forest. Rides into this zone one, that covers the oldest part of the park have to be booked online and at nearly double the cost.

Those who come for on-the-spot tours are sent into zone two. And if that gets filled up, then zone three. Guides insist the chances of seeing a tiger in zone two or three are equally high. So why do people pay for zone one? If you want to see the old, preserved forest, this is where you want to be. Also, zone one is traditionally home to Bandhavgarh's top cat.

The dominant male, Bamera, who took over the reigns from his father, resides here and is known for his love for the cameras.

But we decided to skip a meeting with the king and test Bandhavgarh and its ‘you-can-spot-a-tiger-in-three-outings’ theory in zone two and three. Our first ride was in zone three. Due to fellow companions who felt the need to have a sleep-in, we missed the 6.15 am start and entered at 7 am. With that went any chance of spotting the big cat.

As any wildlife enthusiast will tell you, tigers are nocturnal and your best chance of a sighting is at dusk or dawn. Once the sun is up, they retire to the shade for some R&R. So we had to make do with some spotted and barking deer, langurs and a sambar (who didn’t look thrilled to see us and gave an alarm call so loud it sent our hearts thumping for a long time).

Once out, we were greeted with a tourist’s worst nightmare, fellow groups with smug smiles on the faces. They had seen not one but two tigers. Rats. The evening safari in zone two was looking to go the same way. But a traffic jam on the trail and a lot of pointing and yelling from 15-odd jeeps revealed a tiger was in our midst. How he withstood this commotion is anyone’s guess. Maybe he thought that the visitors would leave eventually, allowing him to get back to his alone time. He was right. We did leave soon enough and he was still there, gloating in his victory over the outsiders.

But were we satisfied with his glimpse? Nah. The brief sighting ensured that our group’s sleepyheads were hooked and decided to be on time. We left at 5.15 am on day two and were among the first to enter zone two.

Then came the best news. A tigress with cubs was around. Woo hoo! We reached the location, and alarm calls were still on. Someone spotted a kill. The dead sambar meant she would return. We waited and were rewarded. We soon spotted the tigress dozing under a tree while her two cubs played.

We were even treated to some great pictures when the little nudgers decided to play with the carcass that was clearly too heavy for them. After some heaving that had tourists grinning like indulgent parents, they decided enough was enough and scampered on.

Like wildlife enthusiast Steve Irwin once famously said, “When you touch an animal, it touches you too.” And the tigers of Bandavgarh are great ambassadors for the endangered species that need our intervention, and fast, to avoid extinction.

Dummy’s guide

Know the forest, like the best time to visit, animals seen, timings and entry fees.

Know your zones.

Pick the right guide. Opt for locals. They know the area well.

Be punctual. You could miss out on a tiger sighting purely because you are late.

Read the signs. Ask your guide to teach you how to spot tigers. This could be as simple as seeing pug marks on the ground, claw marks on the tree or listening to a deer's or monkey's alarm call.

Enjoy the moment. It really is something else

Don’t rough it out

Luxury comes home, literally, at Bandhavgarh with Syna Tiger Resort. Built to capture the essence of India, the rooms are designed either according to states (like Gujarat, Kerala etc) or follow a jungle theme. Families can also book themselves into a tree house.

Streak of tigers on a kill.

2011-12-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

STREAK OF TIGERS ON A KILL - NATURE ALWAYS TELLS DIFFERENT STORIES

For the past 3 days we are seeing this mother with 5 cubs regularly. The first day we spotted this mother with 1 cub and during the next day we spotted the left over 4 cubs all alone in a different area waiting for there mother and sister.

During a rather significant moment in time they chased a Leopard into a tree for approximately 4 hours. We spotted the mother reunited with all of her 5 cubs and made a kill of a hulking Samber Stag. This was an eye opener for the Forest Guard who witnessed the kill as he has always read about how tigers just run or make their prey run only for 20-30 metres.

Today something out of the ordinary happened when the forest official who was tracking this female with cubs encountered the mother with 2 cubs, one of which being female and other male, chased Samber stag for almost 750 metres and ended his life by chocking the windpipe. The male cub held it from behind. Then we were informed that the family was relaxing just next to the kill.

We saw and encountered the streak of Tigers for almost 2 hours. One by one each cub was coming to open and play with the dead stag but stryuggled. Every time they failed, they looked at the mother who was resting just next to the kill as she was too exhausted. Another life time sighting with 6 Tigers, spending 8 hours of my life in 4 days with the nature’s most amazing animal.

TIGERS WERE KILLED ONLY OUTSIDE PANNA: STUDY .

2011-12-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

TIGERS WERE KILLED ONLY OUTSIDE PANNA: STUDY .

With a study on tiger poaching revealing that the big cats were killed only when they ventured outside Panna Tiger Reserve, the call for creating a functional buffer zone has gained momentum, writes Ritesh Mishra

The study in tiger poaching cases suggests that the big cats were killed only when they ventured outside the Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) territory.

Moreover, three recorded cases of poaching of tigers in 2002 and 2006, state that the reasons behind poaching of tigers were not related to illegal trade. This calls for a critical need for functional buffer zone for PTR to check the poaching cases.

The JJ Dutta Committee report on PTR stated this fact and has recommended that a buffer zone should be established in PTR but now it has not been done by the Forest Department.

The other findings were- the village relocations, grazing control and improved fire protection led to excellent habitat recovery of a large part of Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR), which supported an optimum density of wild prey. This high prey density habitat served as the breeding area for tigers and accounted for a steady growth in tiger population. The report states that by 2002 this productive part of PTR had achieved saturation density of tiger population and was already yielding a "breeding surplus" in the form of sub-adults of both sexes that needed "dispersal habitat" beyond the breeding area for survival. On the other hand, absence of reasonably protected and moderately productive dispersal habitat around PTR proved to be a major deficiency for tigers in years 2002 onwards.

The dearth of a functional dispersal habitat also caused grown up sub-adult males to frequent the breeding area as transients and as these attained adulthood led to frequent turnover in territorial males In years after 2002, As recorded by researchers these frequently changing dominant males indulged in heavy cub killing in the breeding area.

Ajay Dubey, an RTI activist, who sought this report filing an RTI, while speaking to The Pioneer said that buffer zone is most important issue in PTR. "I have written to all the authorities in this regard, even the Chief Minister but nothing has been done till now," he added.

The report which was submitted in end of 2010 states the poaching inside PTR were the main cause of decimation of tigers, as was alleged by researchers and media, it should have led to killing of both males and females But the observed subsequent preponderance of males as compared to females. Steady and significant decline in presence of cubs also pointed to declining female numbers within PTR, which can only be explained by the females moving outside.

The report in its finding clearly pointed out that of course animals can and should be sourced from different parks but their familiarisation in the new park is important before they are released as independents. The translocated animals should therefore remain together for some time in the acclimatisation enclosure, preferably large enough (10 or 20 hectares) and separated by a transparent fence so as to allow visual contact.

Translocation of tigers or other animals from one park to another, within a State or between States is essentially ordained by the objective need of active population management as a vital scientific aspect of larger conservation management strategy in the current scenario in India.

The Forest Department should of course apprise local leaders and conservationists as well as tourism industry of such scientific considerations in advance and elicit their understanding and support for such activities, which nonetheless must go on regardless of such support forthcoming.

About the buffer zone, the report states that PTR is potentially a viable conservation unit and can support a tiger population of about 40 animals but it needs a functional buffer zone. Tigers were mainly poached when they ventured out of PTR but the three recorded cases of poaching of tiger in 2002 and 2006 question the effectiveness of control even if these cases were not linked to illegal trade.

This reinforces the critical need of a functional buffer zone for PTR. A functional buffer zone is ordained by the "breeding area" within PTR complemented by "dispersal habitats" so as to prevent the population stress from surfacing again, when the current repopulation efforts, as desired and expected, succeed in a few years.

The report states that PTR requires a new management plan. The last plan was written in 1999: this was then a well-rounded document, living the age and the challenges. The present circumstances and changes in situation need to be incorporated and the aim should be to make this the best plan for conservation in all India. The Committee has suggestions for improving habitat management, managing tourism, setting up of a buffer zone, initiating eco-development and ecotourism for local peoples benefit. These suggestions should be considered by the Planning Officer and the Department. The need is for the Forest Department to raise itself to a level of respected excellence in a time when challenges abound yet support for change and improvement of the present situation is extant, provided there is a perception of change and drive.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

There is need for Forest Department to meaningfully involve local people as well as informed individuals in conservation, and there should be a structured forum and process of such interaction including that with the "whistle blowers".

The age profile of the Madhya Pradesh Forestry Service has got vitiated in that most ranks, due to lack of timely recruitment for a number of years, reflect aged incumbents sub optimally fit for field duties.

The Committee encountered evidence from 2005 onwards of intensifying protection by way of the State Government being seized of the matter as well as of PCCF-General and PCCF-WL issuing directives and making supervisory field visits. Evidence also came forth of these instructions being carried out in the field in PTR.

The Committee's interactions and discussions with police officers threw up the need that even at this late stage a professional police agency should investigate into tiger poaching from 2002 onwards in Panna Tiger Reserve as well as in other reserves and intervening forest areas.

Instituting a police investigation into tiger poaching mortalities, notwithstanding the delay. This was not suggested for any retribution but with the positive aim of finding out the networks and methods of the poachers and recommending a strategy of coordination between the Forest Department and the Police Department in future. This initiative should lead to Madhya Pradesh becoming a zero tiger poaching state in the next one year.

The election of mayor of Sagar Municipal Corporation, Kamla Bua, an eunuch, has been set aside by the district court for submitting wrong information about her caste. Kamla Bua's nearest rival Suman Ahirwar had challenged her election on the ground that she did not belong to Kori caste as claimed by her in her nomination papers.

However, on the request of Kamla Bua's counsel, the court stayed her own verdict till December 15, so that an appeal could be filed in High Court.

The court also ruled that petitioner Ahirwar should now be appointed as mayor. The post of Sagar Mayor was reserved for woman of Scheduled Caste community during the 2009 election. Kamla Bua's counsel said that since nobody had objected to her nomination papers during scrutiny on the basis of her caste, there was no point in entertaining the petition, but the court ruled that cannot be the basis for rejecting the petition.

District Judge Pratibha Ratnaparkhi while delivering the judgement directed the District Collector to ensure removal of Kamla Bua as Mayor of the city and replace her with her nearest rival Suman Ahirwar, the petitioner. Kamla Bai was elected as mayor to the Sagar Municipal Corporation as an independent in December 2009 by a margin of 43,000 votes and had later joined the BJP.

The election of a eunuch as mayor of Sagar town was a history repeated in MP. This was the fourth instance in the State, when eunuchs were elected to other posts.

Eunuch Kamla Bua, who contested the election of mayor from Sagar as an independent, had defeated her nearest rival of BJP by a huge margin.

Both the BJP and Congress had fielded strong candidates against her in the town, but the voters preferred Kamla Bua, following several reasons including corruption. The BJP had fielded Suman Ahirwar, wife of Ashok Ahirwar who is national BJP elective member and assistant professor in Hari Singh Gaur University, Sagar. Ashok had once contested legislator's election from Naryawali and lost.

Kamla Bua had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in June 2010. However, Suman Ahirwar, being a BJP member did not withdraw her complaint against Kamla Bua.

Tiger kills lion at sanctuary with throat bite! December 2011!

2011-12-08T12:17:00.001-08:00

Plan to develop Valmikinagar Tiger Reserve

2011-12-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

Plan to develop Valmikinagar Tiger Reserve

PATNA: In order to develop ecotourism, Bihar government has chalked out a detailed project to develop Valmikinagar Tiger Reserve (VTR) in West Champaran.

Replying to a question of Rajesh Ram, tourism minister Sunil K Pintu said in the legislative council that the department of tourism, Government of India, has sanctioned a sum of Rs 3 crore to develop VTR. The building construction department has been entrusted the job of sanitation, landscaping, approach road, signage, electrical work and wall.

The minister said that VTR would be a major tourist attraction in the state. The state government has also made a plan to develop it at an estimated cost of Rs 23.51 lakh.

51 tigers died in 2011: Report

2011-12-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

51 tigers died in 2011: Report

NEW DELHI: Fifty-one tigers have died in different states of India between January and Dec 5, 2011, according to statistics collated by a prominent wildlife NGO. A tigress shot dead outside Kaziranga Park in Assam on Monday is the latest in that list.

Figures provided by Wildlife Protection Society of India show that 14 tigers perished in Uttarakhand, the highest in a single state. Karnataka takes the second place with six deaths while Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh account for five each.

Poaching, road accident, infighting and fight with other animals are some of the reasons for the deaths. Some tigers died of natural causes and diseases too. A few were killed by villagers, police and the forest department.

"Tiger poachers are still active. On Dec 2, forest department officials recovered a tiger trap placed by poachers in the Nagarjunasagar Srisailam tiger reserve of Andhra Pradesh," says Tito Joseph, programme manager, WPSI.

Skins, bones, skulls and claws of the royal big cat have also been seized in Manipur, Orissa, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand this year.

A tigress was found dead without claws, canines and whiskers in Chhattisgarh's Bhoramdeo Wildlife Sanctuary on Nov 15. "A labourer engaged in patrolling had committed the act. He has been arrested and jailed. He confessed that he had poisoned a cow killed by the tigress. The big cat came back for the kill and died of poisoning. He then took out the claws and other parts of its body," Ram Prakash, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Chhattisgarh told TOI over phone.

There were three more tiger deaths in November. On Nov 3, a tigress was accidentally electrocuted by a cable connection connected to an electric motor pump in vihirgaon village in Maharashtra's Chandrapur district. In another case on Nov 20, tiger died after getting trapped in a wire set up by villagers near Tipeswar Wildlife Sanctuary, Yavatmal, Mahrashtra.

"The tiger got entangled and was strangulated after it tried to break free. A local farmer has been arrested," says AK Saxena, Additional PCCF Wildlife, Maharashtra.

On Nov 20, an injured 14-year-old tiger known as B2 was tranquilized and rescued by forest department in Madhya Pradesh's Bandhavgarh reserve. But the tiger died some time after the capture, WPSI sources say.

The tiger census figures released officially in Jan 2008, showed a mere 1,411 tigers alive as compared to 3,508 in 1997, a drastic drop of 60%. According to fresh government estimates in March 2011, the number now is anywhere between 1,571 and 1,875; the average working out to 1,706.

WPSI figures show 58 tiger deaths in 2010: poaching and seizure (30). Other reasons make up for the remaining 28.

Samir Sinha, head of TRAFFIC-India that monitors illegal wildlife trade, said the loss of every tiger should be cause for worry. "We must also be prepared to accept that any population will have a certain level of mortality. More than the numbers, it's the nature and cause of death that's the concern," he says.

Conservationists say while the death of every tiger counts, there's a positive side to the story. There are reports of 20 new cubs from Tadoba-Andhari, Pench (MP) and Bandhavgarh tiger reserves in Central India. Extrapolate these figures to other tiger habitats, and the rise in numbers could be significant. However, only when the cubs survive the first two years do they get into the official census figures.

WPSI officials say that the main problem with tiger protection today is lack of intelligence-led enforcement leading a failure in breaching organised poaching gangs. There's also a need to improve co-operation from local people in tiger conservation and perk up management effectiveness, says Joseph.

Tigers climbing tree to retrieve meat. Shows tigers agility.

2011-11-22T12:36:00.001-08:00

‘India best hope for tiger conservation’

2011-11-22T12:33:00.001-08:00

‘India best hope for tiger conservation’

Considered one of the founding fathers of wildlife conservation, Dr George Beals Schaller from USA feels that India is the only hope for future tiger conservation. He believes that by the next decade, the number of tigers in India could go up by 50%. Though there is a considerable tiger population in Sumatra, Nepal, Thailand and Malaysia, Indian tiger reserves seem to be the best habitat for tigers in terms of the future.

In an interview with Deccan Chronicle on Tuesday in Bengaluru, 78-year-old Dr Schaller felt that the Indian government is not doing enough to improve the protection facilities and conservation practices in tiger reserves. “There is a need for a national will to protect the tigers in India. An integrated effort involving foresters and local community, is a must to protect the tigers from people and poachers.” Dr Schaller also pointed out that demand for meat and skin from the Chinese medicine-making sector haunts the Indian forests, where poachers are eyeing the big cats. “The lion population in Africa is in a steep decline. The lion bones are now being passed off as tiger bones in the Chinese market. I am holding talks with monasteries in China and through the religious leaders we are hoping to bring about a change in the mindset of the Chinese to leave the wild animals, especially the wild cats, alone”

During the 1970s, Dr Schaller worked with gorillas in South Africa. He spent his later years in China and Tibet, researching the pandas and wild yaks. The wild cats being his prime area of interest, Dr Schaller has inspired tiger conservationists such as Dr Ullas Karanth in India. Dr Schaller suggested that the governments work seriously to solve the human-animal conflict. “Why do tigers hunt cattle? When the forest prey declines the tigers are left with no choice but to venture outside the forest to eat, he said.

Famous tiger B2 passes away. Died in a fight with another Male tiger.

2011-11-22T06:39:00.000-08:00

B2 killed in a deadly fight with another tiger.

IN MEMORY OF B2

B2 A huge male tiger from B.T.R. died today. He was badly injured in fight with another male tiger & was brought to TALA zone for medical treatment but.....:( :( This is one of the best images I have taken of this lovely tiger.He was on the move fr water after eating a kill ...One can see blood to his leg

Tigers kill two, injure one in Kaziranga.

2011-11-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Tigers kill two, injure one in Kaziranga

JORHAT: Two villagers were killed by tigers in two separate incidents at the Kaziranga National Park under Kohra forest range on Saturday. While one villager was killed inside the park, another succumbed to his injuries on way to the Jorhat Medical College Hospital.

The victims were identified as Jawaharlal Karmakar and Krishnaram Gogoi. Another villager, Ganesh Orang, was injured. The first mishap occurred around 1 pm when Karmakar and Orang were busy with their buffallos near the boundary of the park.

Park director Surajit Dutta said, ''Jawaharlal Karmakar was killed on the spot while his companion Ganesh Orang sustained serious injuries when a Royal Bengal tiger attacked them at Haladhibari.''

On receiving information, park authorities rushed to the spot and found the body of Karmakar. "We sent Orang to Jorhat for treatment,'' he said.

The second attack took place around 3 pm in Dagaon. Gogoi had gone inside the park to collect firewood when a tiger pounced on him. ''Gogoi was attacked from behind. Our staff rushed to the spot and took him to Jorhat for treatment but he succumbed on the way,'' said the park director.

Earlier this year, on March 20, eight tourists from West Bengal survived an attack by a tiger at the park when they spotted a big cat from close quarters. The accident occurred when a female tiger and her cubs pounced on the elephants the tourists were riding in the Bagori forest range.

On April 7 this year, a forest guard died on the spot in a rhino attack near the Kartik forest camp under Kohora range. The guard was on duty.

Another forest guard was killed by a rhinoceros at Mohkhuti forest camp in Agoratoli range on February 6. He, too, was on duty.

Besides these accidents, another forest guard died in an attack by wild buffaloes near the Amkathoni forest camp in Bagori forest range on January 23 this year. He was also on duty.

India's last Siberian tiger dies

2011-11-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

India's last Siberian tiger dies

Dehradun: A Siberian tiger, the centre of attraction in the Nainital Zoo, has died apparently of old age, officials said on Sunday.

Kunal (18) was brought to Nainital Zoo in March 1997 along with another Siberian tiger Mahesh from Darjeeling Zoo. However, Mahesh died in 2001, officials said.

Kunal, who died on Saturday, was believed to be the last Siberian tiger left in India.

4 new-born tiger cubs spotted in Tadoba

2011-11-21T07:36:00.000-08:00

4 new-born tiger cubs spotted in Tadoba

The birth of four more tiger cubs in Tadoba tiger reserves in Chandrapur, some 150 kms from Nagpur in eastern Maharashtra announced the 'roar'ing success for the tiger conservation efforts. The field director of Tadoba tiger reserves, Vinaykumar Sinha, said that four newborn tiger cubs were spotted in a camera trap (automated camera to capture photographs of wild animals) last week in Moharli forest range. With this, Tadoba has probably become the first tiger reserve in the country where 32 newborn tiger cubs were spotted since January 2010.

Sinha said that the population of big cats in the reserves, including its buffer zone, has now reached 69. "There is more hope for India's tiger conservation," he said and informed that 17 cubs were spotted in April-July last year alone

The four cubs were seen over the past two months in Moharli area, the latest sighting being on Wednesday, Sinha added. It is believed that a tigress gave birth in September this year.

The camera trap also captured tigress moving around with her two-three month cubs. A tigress takes her cubs out in the open only when they were strong enough, he pointed out.

"When the news of newborn cubs came to us, the wildlife wing installed cameras to know the position and movement of the tigresses and the cubs. The forest guards were monitoring the movements of the tigress and the cubs regularly in the range," Sinha said. More camera traps have been installed in the forest areas to confirm if there were more cubs.

Sinha said there could be possibilities of newcomers in the reserves in the days to come. He, however, denied disclosing the location of two big cats for security reasons. The two tigresses are being keenly monitored since then, he informed.

The Tadoba Tiger Reserve is spread over 623 sq kms of high hills and lush valleys covered with dense teak and bamboo forests. The reserve is also home to wild dogs, leopards, sloth bears, bisons, and hyenas and jungle cats, apart from 69 tigers.

Meanwhile, a full-grown tiger was found on Sunday evening near Bothbahattar village, adjacent of Tipeshwar wildlife sanctuary, some 210 kms from Nagpur in Yavatmal district.

A preliminary investigation revealed that it might be the handiwork of poachers. The chief conservator of forests (Wildlife), A Ashraf, confirmed the death of tiger and informed that a four-member committee was constituted to investigate the cause of the death of beast.

Saranda springs tiger surprise .

2011-11-18T09:18:00.000-08:00

Saranda springs tiger surprise .

If the inhabitants of the Asia’s biggest Sal forest, Saranda, and initial evidence are to be believed, then its good news in the offing for wildlife lovers. Contrary to the general perception that big cats never existed in Saranda, there are hints for the first time of a tigress and a couple of cubs living there.

A team of wildlife experts has been rushed to the spot to examine tiger pugmarks found recently in the dense forest cover of Jharkhand. The team will also collect excreta and shed fur samples.

According to Saranda divisional forest officer KK Tiwari, locals spotted few unfamiliar pugmarks and informed the forest officials. “People even claimed to have seen one tigress and two cubs in the forest,” he added. However, the sighting is yet to be verified.

Jharkhand wildlife warden AK Gupta said, “A team of six members — including local wildlife officers and members from Ranchi — have been sent to Saranda to collect samples.”

He added that a large numbers of leopards and hyena inhabited Saranda earlier and that the forests often give conflicting signals on the presence of big cats.

Saranda is considered an unspoilt world, where nature rules supreme. It is the home of the endangered flying lizard. It is famous for its Sal forests and majestic elephants. However, news of tigers in the area then would definitely be good.

“The samples will be sent for forensic examination and results will be available within 10 days. Since there were no evidences of existence big of cats earlier, so we want to get a confirmed report from the forensic laboratory,” Gupta said.

The Singhbhum Elephant Reserve is the only elephant reserve which exists in this forest, with traditional routes taken by the pachyderms. “We are also trying to trace the routes of the tigers, if they are in the forest. No big cats have shown their existence even in neighbhouring Dalma forests either. It is possible that the tiger family has migrated from Odisha or Andhra Pradesh,” said the wildlife warden.

Gupta added, “Of late, tigers are probably trying out new routes. Few of them might have been isolated towards the Saranda forest and are trying to re-establish themselves here.”

Tiger vs Lion Strike Force. Tigers strike with much greater force than lions.

2011-11-16T08:09:00.000-08:00

Tigers strike with much greater force than lions.

Tiger vs Lion Strength comparison. Tigers are much stronger animals.

2011-11-16T08:06:00.001-08:00

TIgers have more developed muscles than lions, and larger limbs. Thus allowing them to pull much larger weights than lions.

Tigers.

2011-11-15T16:51:00.000-08:00

Tigers

A Cry for the Tiger

We have the means to save the mightiest cat on Earth. But do we have the will?

Ranthambore National Park, India

Dawn, and mist holds the forest. Only a short stretch of red dirt track can be seen. Suddenly—emerging from the red-gold haze of dust and misted light—a tigress ambles into view. First she stops to rub her right-side whiskers against a roadside tree. Then she crosses the road and rubs her left-side whiskers. Then she turns to regard us with a look of infinite and bored indifference.

And then, as if relenting, she reaches up the tree to claw the bark, turning her profile to us, and with it the full impact of her tigerness—the improbable, the gorgeous, the iconographic and visibly powerful flanks.

The tiger. Panthera tigris, largest of all the big cats, to which even biological terminology defers with awed expressions like "apex predator," "charismatic megafauna," "umbrella species." One of the most formidable carnivores on the planet, and yet, amber-coated and patterned with black flames, one of the most beautiful of creatures.

Consider the tiger, how he is formed. With claws up to four inches long and retractable, like a domestic cat's, and carnassial teeth that shatter bone. While able to achieve bursts above 35 miles an hour, the tiger is built for strength, not sustained speed. Short, powerful legs propel his trademark lethal lunge and fabled leaps. Recently, a tiger was captured on video jumping—flying—from flat ground to 13 feet in the air to attack a ranger riding an elephant. The eye of the tiger is backlit by a membrane that reflects light through the retina, the secret of his famous night vision and glowing night eyes. The roar of the tiger—Aaaaauuuunnnn!—can carry more than a mile.

For weeks I had been traveling through some of the best tiger habitat in Asia, from remote forests to tropical woodlands and, on a previous trip, to mangrove swamps—but never before had I seen a tiger. Partly this was because of the animal's legendarily secretive nature. The tiger is powerful enough to kill and drag prey five times its weight, yet it can move through high grass, forest, and even water in unnerving silence. The common refrain of those who have witnessed—or survived—an attack is that the tiger "came from nowhere."

But the other reason for the dearth of sightings is that the ideal tiger landscapes have very few tigers. The tiger has been a threatened species for most of my lifetime, and its rareness has come to be regarded matter-of-factly, as an intrinsic, defining attribute, like its dramatic coloring. The complacent view that the tiger will continue to be "rare" or "threatened" into the foreseeable future is no longer tenable. In the early 21st century, tigers in the wild face the black abyss of annihilation. "This is about making decisions as if we're in an emergency room," says Tom Kaplan, co-founder of Panthera, an organization dedicated to big cats. "This is it."

The tiger's enemies are well-known: Loss of habitat exacerbated by exploding human populations, poverty—which induces poaching of prey animals—and looming over all, the dark threat of the brutal Chinese black market for tiger parts. Less acknowledged are botched conservation strategies that for decades have failed the tiger. The tiger population, dispersed among Asia's 13 tiger countries, is estimated at fewer than 4,000 animals, though many conservationists believe there are hundreds less than that. To put this number in perspective: Global alarm for the species was first sounded in 1969, and early in the '80s it was estimated that some 8,000 tigers remained in the wild. So decades of vociferously expressed concern for tigers—not to mention millions of dollars donated by well-meaning individuals—has achieved the demise of perhaps half of the already imperiled population.

My determination to see a wild tiger in my lifetime brought me to Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, one of 40 in India. My first tiger was spotted within ten minutes, and in a four-day excursion I gloried in nine sightings, including a repeat appearance of that first tiger, a three-year-old female. In high grass she stalked with such patient, focused, deliberateness—each paw raised in slow motion and placed so very gently down—that it was possible to see her stealth.

It didn't matter that in most cases my experience was shared with a queue of other vehicles. Seeing tigers in the wild is now mostly a tourist experience—the Bengal tiger is not only India's national animal but also one of the country's largest draws. Elsewhere, my tiger-seeking travels had been made on rough roads, by river, forest trails, and even elephant, but in Ranthambore I departed at dawn in a jeep that awaited me outside the Oberoi lodge. In the jeep were a ranger, a guide, and most necessary in a place where tiger viewing is a blood sport, an expert driver, who barged ruthlessly to the head of the queue, ensuring me of that first, mystical tiger sighting.

India is home to some 50 percent of the world's wild tigers. The 2010 census reported a maximum estimate of 1,909 in the country—up 20 percent from the previous estimate. While welcome news, most authorities regard the new figure as reflecting better census methods rather than growth of the tiger population: Tiger counts, in India or elsewhere, are still at best only estimates.

A modest 41 of these carefully enumerated tigers were living in Ranthambore. Conducting me through the park one morning, conservator Raghuvir Singh Shekhawat pointed out the variety of wildlife that flourishes where the tiger is protected—langur monkeys, spotted deer, wild boars, collared Scops-owls, kingfishers, and parakeets. And he offered a ground-level glimpse of tiger conservation, stopping his jeep beside a canvas tent in a clearing. "Would you like to see the hard life the field officers lead?" he asked, lifting a tent flap to reveal three slender cots. "Here is their kitchen," he said, gesturing to a pile of canned food and bowls. "In 30 years of service, at least five years is under the tent." The rangers put in up to ten miles a day on early morning foot patrol, taking plaster casts of any pugmarks they encounter and making notes of evidence of prey animals.

Ranthambore's history reflects in miniature the history of the tiger in India. Formerly the private hunting estate of the maharajas of Jaipur, its original 109-square-mile core reserve is ringed by a containing wall, within which undulating forest skirts romantic maharaja-era ruins. One evening I met with Fateh Singh Rathore, the assistant field director of Ranthambore after it became one of India's first Project Tiger reserves in 1973. Tiger hunting was legal in India until the early 1970s, and as a young man, in the days when Ranthambore had been a hunting estate, he had worked as a game warden. "To shoot a tiger, maybe a hundred rupees," he recalled—a couple of dollars.

Always fragile, tiger populations have fluctuated in recent years. Between 2002 and 2004, poaching of some 20 tigers in Ranthambore essentially halved its population. This was better than the fate of the nearby 300-square-mile Sariska Tiger Reserve, found to have no tigers at all: Every single one of its tigers had been killed by professional gangs—and in a reserve just 70 miles from India's capital, New Delhi.

Ranthambore is a hub for a contentious new conservation strategy—the relocation of "surplus" tigers to places like Sariska. Only days before, at a wildlife conference in New Delhi, I had heard heated criticism and questions from India's many outspoken watchdog organizations challenging the strategy: What constitutes a surplus tiger? Had the issues in Sariska and elsewhere been solved before importing new tigers? What research had been conducted regarding potential trauma to both the transported tiger and the home population from which it was taken? And what effect might such trauma have on breeding?

So far, relocation has met with uneven success. Three tigers transported to Sariska were found to be siblings—undesirable for breeding. More eloquent than any of the valid scientific concerns was a story unfolding in the national media: The determined trek toward his home 250 miles away by a lone male removed from Pench Tiger Reserve to restock Panna National Park.

The trek of this solitary tiger highlights another crisis. Many reserves exist as islands of fragile habitat in a vast sea of humanity, yet tigers can range over a hundred miles, seeking prey, mates, and territory. An unwelcome revelation of the new census is that nearly a third of India's tigers live outside tiger reserves, a situation that is dangerous for both human and animal. Prey and tigers can only disperse if there are recognized corridors of land between protected areas to allow unmolested passage. No less critical, such passages serve as genetic corridors, essential to the long-term survival of the species.

It is a heady experience to see an idealistic map of Asia's tiger landscapes linked by arteries of these not-yet-existent corridors. A spiderweb of green tendrils weaves tantalizingly among core populations to form a network that encompasses breathtaking extremes of habitat—Himalayan foothills, jungle, swamp, deciduous forest, grasslands—that pay tribute to the tiger's adaptability. Close scrutiny breaks the spell. The places that have actual tigers—here-and-now, flesh-and-blood tigers—as opposed to hypothetical tigers, are represented by a scattering of mustard-colored blobs. The master plan represents a visionary undertaking, but is it feasible? Over the next decade, infrastructure projects—the kind of development that often destroys habitat—are projected to average some $750 billion a year in Asia.

"I've never met a head of state who says, 'Look, we're a poor country, if it comes between tigers and people, you just have to write off tigers,'" said Alan Rabinowitz, a renowned authority on tigers and the CEO of Panthera. "The governments don't want to lose their most majestic animal. They consider it part of what makes their country what it is, part of the cultural heritage. They won't sacrifice a lot to save it, but if they can see a way to save it, they will usually do it."

Seeing a way has proved difficult amid the plethora of tiger strategies, programs, and initiatives jostling for attention—and funding. The U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Save the Tiger Fund (which has now partnered with Panthera), Global Tiger Patrol, Saving Wild Tigers, All for Tigers!, WWF, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Panthera, International Year of the Tiger Foundation, the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative—the list is impressive. "Five to six million dollars is spent a year for tigers, from all philanthropic organizations," said Mahendra Shrestha, former director of the Save the Tiger Fund, which gave grants totaling more than $17 million between 1995 and 2009. "In many instances the NGOs and tiger-range governments just fight each other."

Long-term conservation must focus on all aspects of a tiger landscape: core breeding populations, inviolate sanctuaries, wildlife corridors, and the surrounding human communities. In an ideal world, all would be funded; as it is, different agencies adopt different strategies for different components. With time running out, tough priorities must be set. "Since the 1990s, there has been what I would sum up as mission drift," said Ullas Karanth of the WCS, who is one of the world's most respected tiger biologists. The drift toward tiger conservation activities like eco-development and social programs, which possibly have greater fund-raising appeal than antipoaching patrols, siphons funds and energy from the single most vital task: safeguarding core breeding populations of tigers. "If these are lost," Karanth said, "you will have tiger landscapes with no tigers."

Decades of experience and failures have yielded a conservation strategy that, according to Rabinowitz, "allows any site or landscape to increase its tigers if followed correctly." Central to this protocol are relentless, systematic, boots-on-the-ground patrolling and monitoring of both tiger and prey in those sites assessed as harboring realistically defensible core tiger populations. Under the protocol, a population of a mere half dozen breeding females can rebound. Such, at least, is the hope for the largest single protected tiger reserve on Earth, a remote valley in northern Myanmar.

My first encounter with the Hukawng Valley Wildlife Sanctuary is not heartening. Arriving at the sprawling settlement of Tanaing in northern Myanmar, I scan with bewilderment the large and cheerful market; the bus stops, generators, and telephone posts; the bustling stalls and restaurants—all lodged within the sanctuary borders.

Conspicuous bites have been taken from the generous buffer zone that embraces the 2,500-square-mile original wildlife sanctuary. Land for a 200,000-acre cassava plantation has been razed and burned so quickly that the diminishment of the forest could be charted not over weeks but days. The gold-mining settlement of Shingbwiyang in the west, where the land has been stripped raw and mountain rivers turned to mud, is home to some 50,000 migrants, and permanent concrete structures and power lines have sprung up among the rudimentary huts of thatch and wood. The rebel Kachin Independence Army controls the reserve's eastern edge.

Yet the sheer size of the 6,708-square-mile tiger reserve can accommodate even these intrusions. Cupped between three mountain ranges, the Hukawng Valley is defined by dense, dark, seemingly boundless jungle. As recently as the 1970s Hukawng villagers encountered tigers in the course of ordinary rural life, hearing their roars at night. Rarely did a tiger harm a human, their victims typically being livestock or cattle. Still, the fearsome potential of the world's largest cat inspired sufficient respect to enshrine the tiger in local mythologies. Among the Naga tribespeople in northwestern Hukawng, stories of tiger shamans still abound. Tigers were Rum Hoi Khan—the King of the Forest, with whom man had a thitsar, a natural bond or treaty. "Naga used to call male tigers Grandfather, and female tigers Grandma," an elderly Naga man told me. "They believe they are their ancestors."

Such beliefs are fading with the tigers, recalled now only by the elderly. Myanmar youth know the tiger more from educational conservation stories than from life. The Myanmar Forest Department, for instance, sponsors a mobile education team that tours villages performing a skit about a tiger killed by a wicked poacher. The grief of the tiger "widow" reportedly moves all the women in the audience to tears. There is perhaps no more eloquent testimony to the tiger's imperiled status than this adjustment of its mythology from Rum Hoi Khan to weeping widow.

Two days after arriving in Tanaing, I joined the Myanmar Forest Department's Flying Tiger and guard teams as they headed up the Tawang River to the Forward Guard Post. The sun had burned off the morning mist, and the river flowed glacial blue under the hard blue sky. Close to shore, banana groves cast green shade on the water. Flocks of mergansers skimmed ahead and waited, while an occasional white-bellied heron sailed by. Hukawng Valley has elephants and clouded leopards, gaur (an ox), and sambar (an Asian deer)—favorite tiger prey; and it has a still unsatisfactorily assessed scattering of tigers.

Upriver, at the Forward Guard Post, a rattan-and-wood house on stilts in a clearing by the water, the head ranger, Zaw Win Khaing, gave an overview of the teams' survey work for the current season. The tiger team spent a third of each month on patrol, looking for tracks or scat of tigers, along with evidence of prey animals such as sambar, gaur, and wild pig. Rangers looked for evidence of human activities. In the previous month they had disbanded a hunter's camp and dispersed or apprehended 34 people involved in land clearing and cultivation, mostly for opium poppies.

Saw Htoo Tha Po, who bore the attractive title of tiger coordinator and is a seasoned veteran of this tough field, described the patrols. "Sometimes if it is sunny, you can see the sky," he said, conjuring what it was like to operate under triple-canopy forest for up to six weeks. The worst days are when it rains, and the trees spill water from their saucerlike leaves, and dripping mists chill the bone. Then the leeches get bigger and "make more blood." The local strain of malaria is particularly vicious and has killed team members. In all, 74 forest department personnel and wildlife police officers, in rotation, are responsible for patrolling a 700-square-mile strategic area of dense forest.

The head ranger, Zaw Win Khaing, once saw a tiger, in 2002. He had sat down to measure bear tracks in a muddy wallow when he saw something move to his right. As he stood up, the tiger's face appeared from the grass. "It was about as close as that chili plant," the ranger said, pointing to a vegetable plot some 15 feet away. "I do not know how long I looked at the tiger, because I was trembling." Eventually, the tiger turned back toward the forest.

By authoritative estimate, there may be 25 tigers in the Hukawng Valley—the authority in this case being an old Lisu tribesman not long retired from tiger poaching, who from time to time agreeably shares information with the tiger teams. Official, scientific evidence of the tigers' existence is harder to come by. In 2006-07 the only trace was several paw prints of a single tiger, and in the 2007-08 season, DNA tests of collected scat indicated the presence of three tigers.

This season a clean line of pugmarks by the river was cause for both celebration and a SWAT-team-worthy follow-up: News of the discovery was radioed in at 8 a.m., and by 6 p.m. the tiger team had arrived from Tanaing. Measurements and plaster casts of the tracks were made over a five-day period, and three camera traps were placed in the area, which had so far yielded only a picture of a pied hornbill. About the same time, fresh tracks were discovered nine miles upriver, which proved to belong to the same tiger. This, then, was payoff for another hard field season—a line of tiger paw prints in the pale yellow sand.

Later I spoke with Alan Rabinowitz, whose decade-long work with the Myanmar Forest Department lay behind the creation of the Hukawng Sanctuary. Was the expenditure of so much effort justified for so few tigers? As part of his answer, he pointed to a map that showed Hukawng's key position in the northern web of tiger landscapes. "Hukawng's potential is so huge," he countered. And he had witnessed habitats that had been turned around. "Huai Kha Khaeng was in terrible shape when I was there in the 1990s, and now it's one of Asia's best tiger reserves."

Huai Kha Khaeng, Thailand

"I first worked here in 1986, when every night there were gunshot noises, every day dead animals," Alan Rabinowitz told the group of 40 rangers, the team leaders who represented the park's 170 ranger personnel, gathered at the headquarters of the 1,073-square-mile Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in western Thailand. The ravaged landscape Rabinowitz described was one his audience could no longer recognize—Huai Kha Khaeng as it had been a mere two and a half decades ago. "What you have done here," Rabinowitz said, "is you have turned Huai Kha Khaeng from a site whose future was in grave doubt into one of the world's best tiger sites."

Two decades ago, perhaps 20 tigers roamed Huai Kha Khaeng. There are now an estimated 60 in the sanctuary alone and roughly 100 in the rest of the Western Forest Complex, which has six times the area. The improved health of the forest and the rise in prey (50 animals, or 6,600 pounds of living prey a year for each tiger, is a general rule) suggest that the tiger population could continue to accelerate upward.

The feasibility of bringing tigers back from the razor's edge of survival relies not only on human actions in the immediate future but also on the tiger's own remarkably resilient nature. Tigers are not finicky about diet or habitat or, like the panda, dependent on a particular ecosystem. Tiger tracks have been found in Bhutan above 13,000 feet, an altitude overlapping the domain of the snow leopard, while tigers in the saltwater mangrove swamps of the Bangladeshi and Indian Sundarbans are powerful swimmers and have learned to supplement their diets with marine life. And tigers reproduce well if given a chance. An average female can rear some six to eight cubs over her 10- to 12-year lifespan—which helped a population like that at Huai Kha Khaeng triple in 20 years.

Dedicated, by-the-book monitoring at Huai Kha Khaeng gave tigers a fighting chance, and the animals responded. At the ranger meeting I watched each of the 20 patrol leaders step up and make a ten-minute report of his team's work. Multimedia presentations showed maps of the patrol area, specific paths followed, man-days spent in each, and locations of trouble spots. No less revealing were images that showed interest beyond the call of duty—photographs rangers had taken of flowers in the forest loam, footage of a lone ant dragging the body of a lizard spread-eagled like a fallen warrior. Rare footage of a mother Asian tapir leading her cub across a river drew murmurs of appreciation from the audience. Burning interest and personal investment, professional pride, motivation, high morale—all were manifest in this room. In so many tiger landscapes, rangers make do with threadbare clothes and third-generation equipment, but the rangers of Huai Kha Khaeng were dressed in smart camouflage uniforms that flagged their status as members of a respected profession.

"Thailand's biggest asset is a national guarantee of salaries, the commitment of the national government," one conservationist told me. The operating budget for Huai Kha Khaeng's 2008-09 season amounted to $670,000, two-thirds paid by the Thai government, and the remaining third coming from WCS, the U.S. government, and various international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This covered office management, species monitoring, training, wildlife-trade monitoring, camera traps, and most important, 30,600 man-days of patrols.

Following the meeting I joined Anak Pattanavibool, director of WCS's Thailand Program; Rabinowitz; and a tracker named Kwanchai Waitanyakan for a walk in the forest. Far below the canopy, we threaded through towering bamboo. Twice we stopped to listen to the low, husky call of an elephant. After a few miles, we broke out onto the clear-flowing Huai Tab Salao stream. On the opposite bank we found a long line of tiger tracks, four inches wide, striding confidently amid the bird scratches and lily-pad prints left by elephants.

"Lean all your weight on your hands," Rabinowitz instructed. Then he measured the depth of the impression my hand made in the sand. "One and a half centimeters," he announced—just over half an inch. The tiger's pugmark was an inch and a half deep. This, Pattanavibool estimated, was a male weighing more than 400 pounds.

In tiger landscapes outside India, most rangers have seen poachers but not tigers, and the hard days and nights they sweat in malarial forest or under canvas are for something they may never see. Even in Huai Kha Khaeng, tigers are less likely to be seen by foot patrols than captured by the roughly 180 camera traps that hold selected areas of the forest under eerie surveillance. Displayed at the sanctuary's wildlife research station were images of tigers caught in all their secret ways—eyes glaring blue and luminescent in the dark, tigers lounging majestically on a bed of leaves under shafts of sunlight, a full-whiskered stare into the lens, or just the tip of a tail.

The goal in Huai Kha Khaeng is to increase the population by 50 percent, to 90 tigers, and eventually to 720 in the entire Western Forest Complex. This prompts more heady speculation: If the tiger population of one well-managed park could be increased threefold in 20 years …

"There is 1.1 million square kilometers of tiger habitat remaining," said Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist and vice president of conservation science of the WWF. "Assuming two tigers for every 100 square kilometers, that's a potential 22,000 tigers."

For now the unnegotiable task is to save the few tigers that actually exist. And the story of the tiger's fate is relentlessly swift-moving. The Year of the Tiger, the celebration of which, in 2010, was the number one objective of a lauded tiger workshop in Kathmandu, has come and gone with no discernible benefit to the world's wild tigers. In November 2010 the 13 tiger countries attending the St. Petersburg Global Tiger Summit in Russia pledged to "strive to double the number of wild tigers across their range by 2022." In March 2010 a mother and two cubs were poisoned in Huai Kha Khaeng, the first poaching casualties in four years. The deaths prompted the Thai government to offer a $3,000 bounty for capture of the poachers. In the same month two young tigers were poisoned in Ranthambore, apparently by villagers who had lost goats to tiger attacks, while two new cubs were later born. And in Hukawng a new male tiger was caught by camera trap, a lone reminder of what this great wilderness could hold.

Most authorities agree that the fight to save the tiger can be won—but that it must be waged with unremitting professional focus that adheres to a proven strategy. It will require the human species to display not merely resolve but outright zealotry.

"I want it in my will," Fateh Singh Rathore had told me in Ranthambore, his eyes burning bright behind his spectacles. "When I die, you spread my ashes on these grounds so the tiger can walk upon my ashes."

Conservationists slam moves to ban India tiger tourism

2011-11-09T09:23:00.000-08:00

Conservationists slam moves to ban India tiger tourism

NEW DELHI — Conservationists and wildlife tour operators warned Monday that moves to restrict tiger tourism in India to protect the endangered big cats would have the opposite effect.

"Banning tiger tourism would be a disaster," said Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

"Tourism acts as a conservation tool and also provides income to thousands of people, many of them local to the area of the reserves," Wright told reporters in New Delhi.

Conservationists argue that tiger poaching is more prevalent in areas of low tourism because poachers feel they have less chance of being spotted and caught.

Tourism also provides revenue for locals who might otherwise turn to poaching as a means of providing for their families.

Last year, the Indian National Tiger Conservation Authority proposed phasing out safaris in India's 40 tiger reserves, saying the animals were being "loved to death" by tourists.

The idea was abandoned after protests from wildlife experts and tour operators, but the Supreme Court is considering a public-interest litigation case, which argues that tourism in "core" tiger habitats should be banned.

Vishal Singh, who heads Travel Operators for Tigers, said the negative impact of tourism on tiger habitats was exaggerated.

"Wildlife tourists carry cameras, not axes. They do not poach, do not submerge forests with dams... They are being unjustifiably blamed for killing tigers," Singh said.

India, home to half of the world's rapidly dwindling wild tiger population, has been struggling to halt the big cat's decline in the face of poachers, international smuggling networks and powerful mining companies.

From an estimated 40,000 animals in India a century ago, the number is now down to around 1,706.

Bengal Tiger facts and Physical Attributes. Bite Force, Weight, Length, Mortality rates etc.

2011-11-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Film on R'bore tiger wins 3 awards in US

2011-10-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

Film on R'bore tiger wins 3 awards in US

In a rare laurel for Ranthambore National Park, a documentary film on a tiger at the park has recently won three awards including that of the 'best film award' at a film festival in Jackson Hole, US. The film christened 'Broken Tail' is the true story of a tiger in the park which had disappeared but survived in an unprotected hinterland for several months and eventually died after a train hit him. The film won three awards in separate categories for the best overall film, best conservation film and best presenter at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (JHWFF).

Internationally renowned as the largest and most prestigious biennial competition of the nature genre, this year's festival that concluded on October 8 included 510 films from more than 30 countries in 800 categories. According to conservationist Aditya Singh of Ranthambore Bagh, who was part of the production crew in India, "Broken Tail was one of the two male cubs of Machali, Ranthambore's best know tigress. In the summer of 2000, sometime in April, Machali mated with a large male tiger called "Bamboo Ram" and three-and-a-half months later, she gave birth to her first litter of two male cubs called Broken Tail (because his tail was broken) and Slant Ear. By the end of December 2001, both these cubs separated from Machali and we never saw Slant Ear again," says Singh. The production team also included conservationist Dharmendra Khandal.

"For about a year-and-a-half, Broken Tail stayed in a small territory at the edge of Ranthambore National Park, not really a great neighbourhood for tigers. Somewhere in the summer of 2003, Broken Tail decided to leave Ranthambore and in August 2003, a passenger train ran over him, in Darrah sanctuary, nearly 100 miles away from Ranthambore. It took the forest department and everyone else, including us, over a year to realize that the tiger that was run down by the train was Broken Tail," he said. Directed by John Murray and Colin Stafford-Johnson, who spent about 600 days filming the documentary. Broken Tail decided to leave Ranthambore and in August 2003, a passenger train ran over him, in Darrah sanctuary, nearly 100 miles away from Ranthambore. It took the forest department and everyone else, including us, over a year to realize that the tiger that was run down by the train was Broken Tail," he said. Directed by John Murray and Colin Stafford-Johnson, who spent about 600 days filming the documentary. Broken Tail had posed for the camera in his initial days, but one day it suddenly disappeared, abandoning the sanctuary. Barely three-years-old then, Broken Tail had made an unprecedented 200 km trek across densely populated countryside while wildlife cameraman Stafford Johnson retraces the steps of the tiger. "Colin had come down to Ranthambore in 2005 to shoot a film for Tokyo Broadcasting Service and that is when he thought of doing a film on Broken Tail's journey. For the next four years, Colin, Salim Ali, one of Ranthambore's best guides, and I researched the film. This included tracking down the path that Broken Tail would have taken from Ranthambore to Darrah.

We did this by inputs from villagers, who had either seen him or whose cattle Broken Tail had killed, forest guards who had seen him or his pugmarks. We interviewed over 200 people including the train driver whose train ran the tiger down in a tunnel in Darrah. The actual filming started in 2009 and was over in 2010. However a lot of the footage was actually shot from 2001 onwards, when Broken Tail was a cub," he adds.

Tourists throng tiger reserves on first day of season

2011-10-31T10:55:00.001-07:00

Tourists throng tiger reserves on first day of season

Living up to expectations, the Ranthambore tiger reserve saw a huge turnout of tourists, after a three month hiatus, on the first day of the season. Tourism also increased at the Sariska tiger reserve with 55 persons, including eight foreigners, making their way into it.

According to forest department officials, "The mood was upbeat at Ranthambore right from the morning. Around 20 Gypsies and nine canters made their way into the park and it included the conservationist Valmik Thappar. The tourists in the morning session spotted a sloth bear and a tiger in the Lakarda zone."

The evening session saw 22 Gypsies and 14 canters making their way into the park. Some tourists on a Gypsy spotted a tigress in the evening session.

"It was a great day at the Ranthambore reserve. As every year on the first day of the season we welcome tourists with a tilak as they enter the park and it happened this year too. The system of checking identity card was enforced and no fake booking was detected. They even managed to spot a tiger, T-16, in the morning session," said UM Sahai, chief wildlife warden, Rajasthan.

In Sariska some confusion prevailed when officials stopped Gypsies from going into the park saying only canters will be allowed inside. The Gypsy owners potested and even sent a protest letter to the Union minister of state for home Jeetendra Singh.

Accordind to Puranmal, a Gypsy owner, "In 2009, we were called by the then DFO Sudershan Sharma and were lured into buying Gypsies as he felt that the localites must get the benefit from the reserve. We had then bought our Gypsies and were even promised that we would be allowed to ply our vehicles for a long time. But this change in directives has been a blow to us. We will not allow the canters to ply under any condition."

Amur tigers get boost from new WWF initiative

2011-10-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

Amur tigers get boost from new WWF initiative

Moscow - Russia’s Khabarovskii Province at the northern end of the Amur tiger range is set to benefit from a new project aimed at securing sustainable development in the region while also protecting the big cat and its habitat.

The three-year project is being developed by the WWF-Russia Amur branch in collaboration with the Nordens Ark Zoo (Sweden). It envisions increasing tiger prey populations, creating and supporting anti-poaching groups and raising awareness in the local population.

To launch the project, WWF and the zoo conducted feasibility studies and participated in anti-poaching raids, working with partners in Anyuisky National Park and the Khabarovskii Province Service for Fauna and Protected Areas, which will be the initiative’s main executors.

Three new anti-poaching groups will be formed and equipped with off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, boats and boat engines for the project. Planned tiger monitoring and field work will be done in close cooperation with local indigenous people. Members of the Udege and Nanai tribes will also get new jobs working as staff for eco-tourism projects and as members of the anti-poaching groups.

“Getting support from local people is an important part of this project,” said Viktor Nikiforov, WWF-Russia Pilot Projects Coordinator. “Local communities, including indigenous tribes, should have opportunities for nature use, traditional hunting and fishing, as well as benefit from ecotourism development.”

Additional plans for the project include opening a new visitor center and development of a special curriculum on ecology and biodiversity conservation for local schools.

The tiger population in Khabarovskii Province currently stands at about 20, with a total of less than 500 wild Amur tigers scattered across the Russian Far East and Northeastern China.

The total global population is estimated at 3,200 individuals, a 97 percent decrease from the estimated 100,000 that roamed widely across Asia at the turn of the last century in 1900.

The Amur tiger is the largest of all the tiger sub species and big cats.

The blind tiger, Rajiv, lost his eyes during a fight in the wild.

2011-10-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/vets-operate-upon-a-tiger-ion-guwahati-zoo/110591-3.html

Vets operate upon a tiger in Guwahati zoo

Guwahati: A blind Royal Bengal tiger had his elbow operated upon at a zoo in Guwahati.

The blind tiger, Rajiv, lost his eyes during a fight in the wild. Now he is recovering from a one of its kind operation on his injured elbow.

Dr Bijoy Gogoi, who rescued him from the Orang National Park, has given this majestic animal a new lease of life.

But Rajiv is right now off limits to visitors, as he recuperates at the Assam state zoo.

(Follow IBNLive.com on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube, and on Google+ for updates that you can share with your friends.)

Tiger shows tourists who runs Everland, Tiger marks territory right in front of male lions face. Owned.

2011-10-25T13:35:00.000-07:00