Tracking the Tiger

         

(From Kanha, India, November 21)

So enough of these blog posts about people talking about tigers.  Let's talk about the real thing.   The tiger itself.  The wild tiger.  In its natural jungle habitat.

Can't get any more natural habitat than the Kanha Reserve in India.  It's exemplary of the kind of place where wild tigers still thrive, assuming poachers don't get to them. 

On November 19th, by 6 AM we were assembled in our jeeps, ours with a driver and guide and four of us as passengers.  I was fortunate to have as my jeep-mates three amazing men: 

Valmik Thapar, tiger conservationist, author, photographer, no doubt the most passionate man about the wild tiger I shall ever meet.  A legend among those knowledgeable about tigers.  It is the combination of his passion about tigers and his ability to articulate that passion to others that makes Valmik the darling of groups as far from the world of tiger conservation as the Young Presidents Organization, whom he addressed recently at a YPO University event in New Delhi.  I hear he blew their sox off about the importance of the wild tiger to all of us. 

PK Sen, Director of the Tiger & Wild Life Programme for the World Wildlife Fund, PK is a foremost wildlife expert in India.  He is an optimist about the wild tiger ,saying "There's no way that people will ever let the majestic cats die out. The tiger has been a symbol of strength and might for thousands of years and we don't want to live without them."

Urs Breitenmoser, a Swiss who co-chairs the IUCN Species Survival Commission Cat Specialist Group, which unites 210 experts on wild cat species from all over the world.  He's been involved in large carnivore conservation in Europe since the late 1980's and is now on the faculty of the University of Berne, Switzerland.

It was Urs with whom I "shared the elephant" on which we rode to each of our tiger sightings this week.  So we are forever bonded over tigresses.  An amazing experience. 

I began to understand the passion these remarkable Kahna Circle members feel for the wild tiger.  There is truly nothing else like it, at least in my experience.  I've seen lions, cheetahs and other big cats in Africa and elsewhere...but somehow the wild tiger is in a class by itself.  No wonder it is such a charismatic symbol to so many. 

It began early in the morning on November 19 as our jeep entered the Kahna reserve.  Within minutes the guide was pointing our wildlife of all kinds and sizes: peacocks everywhere; a sole Indian bison--a huge animal larger than the American buffalo with widespread horns, chomping on tall grasses by the side of the road.  Numerous chattering monkeys; spotted dear in large numbers; wild boar, owls.  Soaring birds of various colors and sizes.   At one point we stopped the jeep to look carefully at the sand in the road which, in addition to jeep tracks, contained footprints...unmistakably the footprints of at least one large tiger who had passed our way within the hour.  The footprints took my breath away: imagine, we are here in tiger territory, on the tiger's path, and we just missed him/her. 

It reminded me of the story Tony Whitten, one of our Kahna Circle, told me a few days ago.   He was about 10 years old when he was lucky to be present at the London Zoo when the zookeepers were transporting a zoo tiger from one cage to another.   When the tiger moved regally from one place to another--close to where Tony was standing--he affected Tony for life.  "He breathed on me," Tony said.  "And I knew him...and admired him and wanted to know more."  Now Tony serves as Senior Biodiversity Specialist of the World Bank and has worked with animals all his adult life, from snails to ducks, to primates of various kinds, to wild cats. 

The tiger tracks were at once mysterious, majestic, tantalizing, to me.  Now I had to see a wild tiger.  Please God, let me see a tiger before we leave, I prayed, knowing that because the tiger is a nocturnal animal and highly elusive, it was not a sure thing.

But we got lucky.  Not too long after we saw the tiger tracks, our guide indicated he'd heard via walkie talkie that there was a tigress ahead in the jungle, sitting near her recent kill, a wild boar.  We went to the area and there Urs and I got on an elephant to find the tiger.  Atop the elephant, we watched with fascination as the driver guide of the elephant sat close to the elephant's head, with one bare foot right behind each of the elephant's ears.  His bare feet act as his steering mechanism, and he's a skilled driver, able to move the elephant smoothly and accurately on the path he chooses, depending on where he hears sounds in the grasses below or in the trees. 

We come upon the wild boar--or what is left of it--first.  Itself a large animal, the boar must have presented a tasty dish to the tigress.  We were told a tiger of this size can go 4 to 5 days between kills like this; a novice observer like me learns quickly the importance abundance of prey in order for the tiger to maintain a healthy existence in the wild.  Then we saw the tigress herself.  Magnificent.  Big, glorious head.  Massive paws.  And that glorious orange color with dramatic stripes all over her body.  A glorious creature.  She is the tiger in the picture above, just as we first came upon her...

Now I get it.  I am beginning to understand the passion these remarkable Kahna Circle members feel for the tiger.  And I believe that we can initiate a Brandversation that will elicit excitement in others around the world who will become convinced of the importance of ensuring that the wild tiger continues to thrive on this earth for generations to come.  Applying commercially valid principles like Brandversation to the tiger is our challenge.  And I look forward to getting started on this next phase of Tiger Talk.