India Hunts T-1

a young tiger, not T-!

Man-eating tiger--a phrase that still invokes terror--was the problem of a previous age when tigers competed with humans for space in which to live.  Steep declines in India's tiger populations since the 20th century made the term almost obsolete.  Then their were 40,000 tigers in India. But their forested habitat was destroyed, and tigers hunted or exterminated relentlessly.  Now, thanks to conservation, India has a new, old problem.  Tiger numbers have increased greatly in recent years, growing 30% in just four years.  India's approximately 2500 counted tigers are running out of room in which to live in one of the most dense human populations on the planet.  Leaving the protected reserves in search of food and mates, tigers are coming into more frequent conflict with humans again. Consequently fear of tiger attacks is growing in rural India.

This perilous situation is the backdrop for the hunt for T-1, a five year old tigress that lives in the vicinity of the village of Pandharkawada in central India.  She is accused of 13 human kills based upon DNA samples, pug marks, and numerous sightings.  Some of her victims have been partially consumed.  T-1's mother died of electrocution when she contacted a farmer's electrified fence.  Perhaps the memory of mother's death at the hand of man has never left her memory. Rangers have been keeping track of her since she was a cub. Irate villagers are demanding that T-1 be shot on sight, but tiger activists have blocked that action, taking their case all the way to India's supreme court.  So rangers have begun a complex, military style operation to trap or tranquilize T-1 so she can be relocated or sent to a zoo.  The problem is that she is a very clever cat and has eluded capture so far.  Rangers are awaiting the arrival of elephants from which sharpshooters can dart the crafty tigress in the bush.  Intense bureaucratic in-fighting between agencies responsible for wildlife conservation has also held up the hunt for T-1.  The story could be a tale from Rudyard Kipling.

credit: Bandhavgarh Tiger Safari

Development all across India are reducing its forests to mere tendrils of green.  Wild corridors supposed to link tiger reserves are increasingly cut by roads and more farms.  An adult tiger needs square miles of thick forest territory depending on the availability of prey, and they are intensely territorial.  An adult male may even kill its mother over disputed territory.  A noted Indian tiger advocate says, “Our tiger situation is not a success story, it’s a mess. We have a whole bunch of islands, and the corridors in between are wiped out or degraded. Many tiger reserves are nonstarters, with less than five tigers or none at all."  India has 50 tiger reserves at present, many surrounded on all sides by human settlements.  In several areas more prey lives outside the reserve--often in the form of mangy, unwanted cattle protected by Hindu religious beliefs.  T-1 never lived in a reserve, as have 30% of India's wild tigers.

DNA collected from saliva left on her victims confirm that T-1 is the man-eater. In January forest officials applied for a shoot order. In the meantime T-1 gave  birth to two cubs.  Nevertheless there is great local pressure to kill her as soon as possible.   Tiger advocates who have blocked the kill order say she is simply trying to survive and feed her family against the increasing encroachment of humans on her territory.  Every time a tiger kills a human outside a reserve the government offers compensation, up to $14,000.  Conservation officials are wary of fraudulent claims because the compensation is significant money to a rural Indian. During a capture operation, an older man who could barely walk positioned himself right next to a cage that the rangers had baited with fresh buffalo meat.  When asked what on Earth was he doing, he asked if the authorities would give the compensation to his family.  In the past villagers would walk in the forest at night--not any more near Pandharkawada where T-1, burning bright, stalks the jungles of the night.