What lies ahead..

Imagine yourself living a villager’s life, living close to a tiger reserve. You will always have threat of wild animal vandalising your farms, destroying crops and orchards and lifting cattle. Thus leading to economic loss. Imagine you have no freedom to move freely at night like in cities. For the night belongs to wild spirits in these areas. Just imagine the fear of your kids not returning home on way back from school or after playing outdoors at dusk. Worst case, imagine how would you feel if your loved one is mauled to the last breath by a wild animal. What would you do for such personal and emotional loss?

This is the everyday life of person living on edge of forest. Hats off to the patience of these villagers who have accommodated themselves with wildlife. However at times if such situations persist for too long the inevitable reaction from villagers to chase out the wild-animal and seek revenge cannot be ignored. This thought of negative interaction between humans and animals is what scares me.

Case in points, two specific tigers, first Chota Matka – the show stopper of Tadoba and second, his cub from Bhanuskhindi. Chota Matka is used to humans and not distracted by their presence. He thrives majorly on cattle lifted from villages surrounding the Navegaon zone. The forest department compensates the villagers for cattle loss with very hefty amount and is one of the highest compensation across any Tiger reserve in India and hence this situation has not been in limelight yet. However as I see, one fine day (few years from now) when Chota Matka becomes old and unable to hunt in wild, he will rely more and more on cattle and this will bring him more in contact with humans. He is bold and has lost fear of humans so to say since he is used to seeing humans (tourists) since he was a cub. This leads to high probability that someday he might consider human for food and he will be held responsible for following his survival instincts. I hope & pray that my assessment of the situation goes completely wrong.

The cubs of Bhanuskhindi are about to reach a 2 year old mark. They are in transition phase of becoming sub-adults and on way to become independent. One of cubs recently killed a villager who entered the forest to collect firewoods. The forest departtment under various schemes have been providing all essentials to locals so that they do not go in forest for any activity. However, some inherent needs pushed the individual towards the forest. This is not the first time that this cub has killed a human. Just a few months ago, the adolescent cub had killed farmer in similar way. Tiger cubs are curious and known to take nudge at everything that moves and takes their attention. The cubs are bold and fearless like their father Chota Matka. If they lose fear of humans and sense that we are very easy prey, we will be looking at a very grim situation. The FD is doing whatever best they can to avoid man-animal conflict in this case too. The question still remains what is the cub learning about humans?

There are many such examples not just in Tadoba landscape but across other tiger reserves in India as well. Tadoba is my home ground, hence the examples. I really don’t know the future of Chota Matka or the cubs. I’m not biologist, scientist or forester per se, I’m just a keen wildlife lover, naturalist and tiger fanatic. I don’t know what lies ahead for these wild spirits but I strongly believe that as long as we as humans understand, acknowledge and appreciate the fact that we have taken a lot from them and their ancestors, these wild spirits have a chance of thriving. Let us give the wild spirts deserved space and support their cause, no matter what how dire our need is.