Kanha, Not Just Tigers but Much More!!

 

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“If someone goes to forest & complains he hasn’t seen anything then he is blind, deaf & incapable of smelling; in short, is a fool’…

Well, name of the author of above quote I won’t mention as with this statement many around will be offended but I am completely in sync with the quote, that’s why I decided to start with it, however rude it may be sounding! I could have started with something nice & beautiful as the subject of sharing is closest to my heart i.e., Kanha Forest & that way l love every forest I have been to yet among the number of the kids, one is always dearer to the mom, so is Kanha for me! And somehow there has been a big gap in visiting Kanha at leisure rather biggest as I have been going regularly to Kanha from year 2000 & that too more than once in a year yet Covid has interrupted the travels & though last year I had been to kanha yet it was mere four safaris trip & three out of them have been washed away due to rains (in May)! But then weirdly it may be yet rains, clouds have been part of my kanha trips in the last eight years whichever season I may visit, maybe that’s what global warming is! The problem is not just with me, as I have already shared in previous writings, entire Central Indian wildlife tourism has been hit by these changed rain patterns & its effect 9read as ill effect) on tiger sightings! I have seen tigers & leopards in the rain. Sudden cold weather & clouds makes these predators relax & sleep wherever they are resting in the day time which or else the harsh heat of summers would have made them move for waterholes & chances of sightings becoming more, which is not happening!

This is why I used the quote as my driver, who is a veteran of Kanha, was telling, “sir, Punase tourist kafi kum ho gaye hai aaj kal”. The reason is distance of Kanha from Nagpur, it takes minimum five hours (at safe speed) , the fall of Go-Air, making only one flight (that too very odd time) option available to commute from Pune to Nagpur & with such weather reduced chances of tiger sighting due to the vastness & greenness of Kanha forest! And on top of it, there is tadoba which has more chances of tiger sighting & it’s just two hours’ drive from Nagpur rather with Samrudhhi Mahamarg option, one can drive in strati ten hours to tadoba from Pune, making it easier as well cheaper for group of six people! All these are my logical reasons but something Kanha authorities must do if they weren’t to stand by their slogan i.e. “Aao Bagh Dekhkhne”, as weather is one reason but its age old a bit negative attitude towards tourism is the main reason for lesser tiger sightings which directly affects tourists interest to visit the forest! I know it’s wrong to visit forest for just tiger yet even the Govts promote the forests making wildlife tourism tiger centric is a fact, so why to blame only the tourists, right? Again, no problem with wildlife tourism being tiger centric is my personal view which I know many conservationists as well forest officers & true wild lifers, very few though will frown on & comment, “sanjay, tumse ye ummid nahi thi”!  But then, in a country with a human population near one fifty crore there are just 3500 tigers, spread over some lakhs of sq kms, that makes a tiger special & people respect (or say wish to have) only the special is a human tendency! And to see a tiger they have to visit the forests which again is indirect help to the wildlife only, is my point.

Because if we want to make the tourists see the tiger then first, we have to save its home as well as manage that home in such a way that tigers will have enough space to survive because in a way tigers save the forests & forests save tigers in return! If you are confused then let me explain, in any jungle if there is no big predator such as tiger then the herbivores will grow too an extent where they will be a nuisance to the neighboring human settlements (farms) & as there is no fear of tiger humans will finish of the herbivores animals as well the forest itself. Presence of tigers in a forest keeps humans away from such forests to some extent, as well the forest in return protects the tiger by giving it the place it needs to survive & grow in numbers! Here is where Kanha if is a boon for tigers on one hand then is a curse for tourism from the angle of tiger sightings as tigers have huge space to take solace & not needing to come in open for the sighting of the tourists which pays thousands of rupees just to have one look of the tiger! Here is where forest depts’ role comes in to play as with all due respect with beauty & magic of the kanha forest, most tourists doesn’t come to have a look at its vast expand, green landscape, the golden barsinghas & all such (well, there are like me which do) but for the tiger & then only they can admire the rest above aspects. So, to open up new routes as well considering the new buffer & relocated villages areas, the forest dept always can work out a way by which tiger sightings can be increased in the tourism zones as well not breaking Supreme Courts norms (again something to be debated but next time), which is not happening, is a fact. We can think of making more water holes along the road as well closing down a few routes where tiger sightings are not consistent & creating new routes where tiger sightings are happening, so that more & more tourists can see the king in his true way!

Another aspect is about the timings of the parks & keeping it closed during all the monsoon as a park as big as Kanha, definitely some routes & zones can be operational throughout the year, so why not keep the park open all 365 days, have you even heard that Disney Theme Park is closed for holidays, indeed some rides can be kept closed for repairs & maintenance but at large entire park is open all the year long as they mean business! Here again wild lifers & conservationists will say, this is nature & not business & my reply is then close it forever as nature is the same in all the seasons, why keep open in winters & summers then, right? Guys we are talking about conservation & we should be open to all aspects, study its pros & cons & then decide, instead jumping to some conclusion by using denying mode! A big forest like Kanha makes the livelihood of thousands of people around it in the form of many jobs, services it generates via wildlife tourism & its these people which, actually are part of the Kanha forest & are its protector too! So, if by making a tiger more visible a bit all these humans are going to make a better livelihood for themselves, then what’s harm in it, is my point! All over the world, wildlife tourism has been used as the best tool for conservation of wildlife, unfortunately only in our country it considered as taboo & outcome is people which are real protector of the forests often ends up at receiving end of the adversities, only because we do not act with balancing approach when its wildlife conservation, is my point of sharing! Forests like Kanha have immense potential for not just wildlife tourism but to make people know about the beauty & importance of the forests as it's like a show -window of nature, all we need is to display that window in the right fashion.

Coming back to the sightings (not just tigers), though it was May end yet thanks (is it?) to the untimely rains, the grass was green along with the evergreen Sal & on that canvas the golden Barsinghas is a sight which one must see by himself than me explaining about it. We encountered tigers a number of times but an interesting thing was (and good also), increased sightings of the sloth bear in Kanha. Many tourists don’t take serious cognizance of this weird animal’s sighting but it's rarer than sighting of a tiger in the forests & this time Kanha helped me to tick my one more wish list (greedy, forests make you) & that is to see a sloth bear climbing on a tree! You will laugh but in day time even to see a sloth bear in the clear is difficult so to see it climbing on a tree in the open, is not something you get to witness every day. But this time on a morning ride in meadows when we saw a sloth bear on food hunt approaching a banyan tree, I was super excited when its suddenly tried to climb that tree though as the girth of the tree was too big for the sloth bear in half way it gave up & got down, a funniest sight it was! Actually, we need to make tourist aware about such sighting’s importance, the guides do try but so much focused the tourist are on the tiger that while we were engrossed in sloth bear sighting few gypsies passed by without stopping as they were behind tiger sighting & didn’t want to waste their time watching some silly black furry animal climbing on the tree! Here even if the guides do try to tell the tourists about animals like sloth bear & their importance yet its unawareness of the tourists that they are interested in seeing the tiger first, this is where importance of tiger sighting comes into picture. As once any tourist has seen the tiger then only, he or she is open to know more about the wildlife’s other aspects & I understand that mentality, point is forest dept also should understand it!

We also witnessed a wonderful sighting of a tigress named Neelam which was on hunt despite an injury to her front leg for her small cubs, & while I started writing this blog, a news came (on FB) that Neelam was seriously injured in a fight with another tigress. Even with the vast expanse of Kanha, space is a big problem with increasing numbers of tigers & territorial fights are a major concern for survival of the tigers, something we need to act upon fast! At the same time relocation of prey (deer) in lesser prey base areas along with creating more water bodies, so as evenly distribution of the tigers will be there is also required & fast!

To mention in the last, we handed over winter-gear for Kanha forest's guides for the winters ahead which are harsh in these Sal forests. Every year thousands of tourists visit our forests & get rejuvenated by being in nature & fill-up social media with their clicks by the camera’s worth lakhs of rupees but hardly anybody thinks about contributing for the people who make these moments possible for us. One of the guides mentioned this, “saab yaha full day safaripe ek din me loak lakh rupayya kharacha katrate hai par humari jaruratoke bareme bahot kum loag sochate hai”, mind it friends, if we want to make places like Kanha forests to survive & that only will define fate of the tiger; adios, with this note…!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

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