Tadoba Report . May - June 2017.

Tadoba was in the news from the last week of April though for reasons less pleasant. First came the news of a fire breakout in the Telia region on 27th April. The fire had spread wide destroying quite a large area so much so that the Park authorities decided to close down Telia region  for the remaining tourist season. Next there was killing of a Forest Development Corporation employee on 11th May deployed in the Tadoba lake area on fire watch duty . That unfortunate soul had gone for his morning ablutions when he was attacked and killed by a tiger. Opinions are divided. Some blame the dominant male tiger of the area called "Matkasur" while others hold the tigress P-2 aka "Maya" responsible for the killing. Anyway it could be either of the two . A week after came the news of a leopard attack in the village Mohadi . This village is located about 8 km east of Kolara gate. The feline had picked up a goat from the village taking her to a nearby culvert. Some villagers followed . Soon  about 150-200 men crowded the spot all shouting to flush out the leopard. The result was tragic. The leopard escaped but not before punishing 3 spectators for disturbing his meal.


As per my plan I reached Tadoba on 28th May and took the afternoon safari. Since the Telia area stood banned temporarily all the tourist traffic from Moharli and Navegaon gates stood diverted to Jamni- Panderpavni area. Some 50 odd vehicles , 6 Canters and about 45 Gypsies , were in competition on the road in an attempt to occupy  vantage point for  sighting and photography. The result was chaos.  The narrow Jamni road was chaotic, noisy and unruly. I wondered at the wisdom of Park authorities . Why some other area was not opened in lieu of Telia closure? That would have certainly  eased pressure on a single area and also on the animals . However despite of the chaotic conditions tigress P-2 aka "Maya" didn't disappoint . I found her at "Äinbodi" water hole and as she finished off her cooling session a Sloth Bear came in . The day was really hot. The next day I saw P-1's sub-adult cub on the Jamni road. In the evening "Matkasur "male and a fleeting cub of "Devdoh" female were sighted. I sometime wonder at the fate of Tadoba tourism if the tigresses P-1 and P-2 were not there !

Having had enough of  Jamni I decided to explore buffer areas and Kolsa range. Next day I went to Kolara buffer. The buffer jungle is very beautiful and very rich with wildlife. My guide  told me about the shifting of a few tigers there from Telia region due to the fire incident . However I didn't spot any.

I spent next 2 days at Kolsa range. Though the distance to Kolsa from Kolara gate, where I was staying, is about 50kms but it was worth exploring Kolsa .Since only 3 Gypsies are allowed from the Pangdi gate , the entrance to Kolsa , there was no traffic rush nor any chaos inside the jungle. I found Shivenjahri empty but   met the Hirdinala female along with her 3 cubs late in the evening near Sukhdibodi. The next day  brought more luck  when I met the Kuhani female with her 3 cubs. The Kuhani female is a magnificent tigress . One needs to see it on order to  appreciate her immense grace and beauty.

My next four safaris, and the last also, were in the Alizanza buffer zone. This newly opened buffer is about 12 kms south of Kolara gate in the vicinity of a village of the same name. It has a rocky terrain with two current hotspots , Kinichua and Jharna , for the big cat sightings. I found Jharna empty . The resident tigress had moved out along with her four months old cubs due to increased vehicle movements in that small area. However the Kinichua was very much alive and I witnessed some very interesting scenes there enacted  by its resident male tiger called Rana .


The Kinichua area is a small depression ensconced between  the hill slopes on its eastern and western sides.  The northern side  has a sloping green meadow of about thirty acres with a small stream flowing through  supplying water to the Kinichua waterhole  which is accessible from the northern and western sides. It's a good birding spot also. I found Kingfishers, Asian Paradise Flycatchers and Hawk Eagles there. Herbivores especially the Indian Guars come from the northern side as it provides a clear visibility to the waterhole. The western side passage, though short in approach , is through a dry Nala which is dark with a steep left turn . Rana, the tiger, ambushes it prey on these two spots and the whole area appeared to be a graveyard of the mighty Gaurs. Rana had killed a calf and the mother Gaur at the western entry a day before and was enjoying both the kills at his leisure.

                                                                               

In the  evening of my last safari when the visiting hour was about to be over, Rana stepped into the waterhole . I was near to the entrance and aimed my camera instantly. The tiger was not pleased . See his displeasure in the photo below.

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Meeting a Green Warrior

Finding people devoted to some worthy cause for the benefit of the society at large without expecting rewards or personal gains is rare indeed these days. But nonetheless such people exist. And I am glad to introduce such a person who I would call a green warrior devoted to the cause of wildlife conservation and showing people how to live harmoniously with the wild animals around them without any conflicts.




Meet Mr Anurag Kumar. Tall, humble and very soft spoken Anurag is in his forties. Despite being a government employee he finds time for what he loves most ; working for and spreading the word of nature and wildlife conservation. Operating from his modest tenement in the village of Bansinagar, on the periphery of the Dudhwa National Park which is just four kms away, he teaches wildlife conservation to village children and takes them, from time to time, on rescue walks around the village and along the Mailani- Gonda meter gauge railway line which passes close to his tenement at about twenty meters away. Many creatures, during the course of such walks, especially of the crawling type, have been saved from the impending death under the rolling  wheels of the passing trains that ply on this rail route.




I came to know Anurag a year ago just by chance. One early morning while driving to Kishenpur Wildlife Sanctuary from Dudhwa, where I was on a safari, I saw a pair of turtles crawling on the narrow public road at about five hundred meters away from the gate. I asked the driver to stop and  pick up and release them across the jungle fire line on the opposite side of the road. This started a small conversation between us when I asked the driver why the forest staff didn't patrol the park adjacent road area just to take care of such cases. Driver's reply was negative but he did tell me about Anurag saying that at some distance away in the village of Bansinagar there lived a gentleman, a wildlife enthusiast, engaged in such kind of work. After few minutes we drove past the village located on the road side about four kms away from Dudhwa National Park.




I met Anurag in the last week of November 2016 at his residence in Bansinagar where he had bought half an acre land and built  his tenement thereupon some ten years ago. Though he was interested in wildlife since childhood, it was a chance sighting of a tiger and what transpired thereafter that inspired him to work for wildlife conservation. The spark came from Anurag's Dudhwa visit where, up at the Sonaripur watch tower, he heard a tiger growling  hidden in the nearby bushes. He wished hard for a sighting but the tiger didn't oblige.






While driving back to Lakhimpur after the safari he met with a tiger head on in  broad day light  around 11.30 am on the narrow public road with a crowd of passers by stopped and transfixed watching the feline from both ends of the road. The tiger stayed in the road for about 4 -5 minutes and then crossed over disappearing in to the adjoining sugar cane fields.




Anurag was so enchanted with the sighting that he stopped at the toll tax post, which used to be there during those days near Bansinagar village, and started enquiring about  tigers and other wildlife around Dudhwa National Park. His queries went largely unreplied but for a man, incidentally from Bansinager village only, who took him to village and told him whatever he could. And while departing the host commented casually that unlike the people who visited the park, in an obvious reference to Dudhwa, for wildlife sightings he enjoyed such scenes at home as there was lot of wildlife around his village itself. That comment proved to be deciding for Anurag for he bought land there  just two months after.




Villagers were very suspicious of the people coming from outside found Anurag and so he thought of building a small two room house on the purchased land and spend his free time there as much as he could afford. Thus over the years he became a "Bansinagarian".




Anurag hopes village children to be the future champions of nature and wildlife conservation. He finds them very open minded and ready to learn new things unlike the village elders who, as per him, are less amenable to suggestions and guided more by their stored experiences, good or bad. In the course of time he appointed a lady teacher to teach children about nature conservation as this subject was nowhere in the curriculum of the local schools where the village children go for their education. I was pleasantly surprised at the subject knowledge the children had and Anurag was quick to explain that since all of them assisted their families at the farm fields some time or the other they knew a lot about wildlife. As the sugar cane is the main crop of the area, the sugar cane fields have become home to a variety of wild animals including tigers and leopards that prey upon wild boars, many species of herbivores and Rhesus monkeys that destroy the sugar cane crop. So the big cats are welcome here.

A green class in progress

                                                               Anurag at his tenement




Anurag told me about a male tiger who, he says, is a regular visitor to the village. Almost every second evening the feline is said to enter the village from the railway line side.

                                           Village pathway from railway line end. The Peepal
                                              tree is on the left.




Walking on the brick soled pathway to the village it stops and sits under the grand old Peepal tree( Ficus religiosa) which is just at the entrance of the walkway to Anurag's tenement. The tiger, being a regular  for quite some time, has come to recognise the sounds of mobile ringtones and music which permeates around from the transistor radios in the village. I was speechless to hear that.




My car, parked on the pathway to Anurag's tenement, had attracted notice of villagers for they were anxious to find about an outsider's presence in the village. Exhibiting a deer like curiosity some had gathered around listening to my conservation with Anurag very attentively. Under the circumstances their impromptu participation in the conversation was something that wasn't unexpected when  one from them opined that he was reconciled to the tiger's presence in the village and that the animal had so far never harmed anyone in the area, not even the village cattle. "Öh, don't you know the reason behind" interjected the other "that it was all due to the mercy and blessings of the 'Bramrakchhas Baba' who lived in the Peepal tree. The tiger is a baba devotee and that is why it comes there regularly. And you must  know also that it stands warned from Baba not to harm any living sole in the village be it a man or animal". Others kept silent and nodded in agreement to that very authoritative sounding statement. Anyway whatever may be the truth ,  villagers belief  in 'Baramrakchhas Baba' is tremendous . Every year in the month of October a village fair is held wherein population from the surrounding villages also participate in worshipping and propitiating the tree ensconced spirit.




Anurag took me on a guided tour around the village. We walked to the railway line and from there turned to left. It was decided that we shall go up to Nakahuwa rail bridge about 700 meters away and then cross over the railway line to descend on the other side in order to walk back to village.




Bansinagr village fields lay on both sides of the railway line and those on to our right  seemed to merge almost with the forest line of Dudhwa National Park. The sugar cane crop had matured and harvesting was to start soon when chances of sudden encounter with tigers would increase. As the tall sugar cane crop provides an excellent cover, tigers,  especially the tigresses, like to rear their cubs in the sugar cane fields. The abundance of prey  and many perennial water holes around, make the area a preferred sanctuary for tigers as they can live there for months together totally undisturbed and away from human interference and sight.

Fields merging with forest. Dudhwa tree silhouettes on horizon.

                          
                                         
  We reached the Nakahuwa river rail bridge after a brief twenty minutes walk. Like the river Suheli in the vicinity and all other rivers of the terai region, Nakahuwa is also home to Crocodiles or the  'Magar'as the amphibian is called locally. I saw many of them in the river and on the banks basking in the sunlight.

Anurag at the bridge

   

  

  Nakahuwa crocodiles

We crossed the railway line and  descended down to the other side of the village fields. Anurag cautioned me to walk very carefully and only in the middle of the narrow path lest some tiger or leopard hidden in  the sugar cane fields touching both  sides of the pathway takes a swipe at me. My adrenaline levels shot up and I did find tiger pug marks on the dusty pathway leading forward towards the village." Is tiger also walking to village with us"  I couldn't resist asking Anurag. A few steps ahead  we came across a troop of macaques busy enjoying a sweet  party.

Anurag was conferred the prestigious "Green Teacher Award "instituted by Sanctuary Asia, a prominent wildlife journal, in the year 2015 for his pioneering work. Mr Shyam Benegal, the famous Indian film director and screenwriter, presented the award at a glittering function held at Mumbai

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