"When two tigers fight, one is certain to be maimed, and one to die."… Master Funakoshi
"It is far better to live like a tiger for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years."…- Benito Mussolini.
Very surprisingly neither Master Funakoshi who happens to be from Japan & Mussolini is from Italy, as their respective countries doesn’t have tigers, so I doubt whether they have ever seen one in actual forest yet their quotes are perfect description of the striped specie which is apex of wildlife in our country as well that of wildlife tourism also & so is on social media! Of late my regular readers (well there are a few such) must be thinking I am obsessed by the tigers that too Tadoba tigers then though I am not obsessed but when it’s about wildlife then you can miss these two i.e., tigers & tadoba & I use this combo the way Doctors use a particular case for case study which is helpful for many critical cases ahead. Tadoba on one side is one of the most successful case studies for conservation of tigers then on the other side it shows us the hurdles ahead also in the conservation process which is not complete yet! Frankly all such sharing’s, they just happened to be on the backdrop of tadoba & the experiences could have been from anywhere just because I am closely associated with tadoba & like Paparazzi's chase celebrities only (not you & me) & tadoba is like Bollywood of wildlife & tigers here are celebrities so the sharing’s happens to be about tadoba tigers more is simple analogy I can put forward!
So, recently in tadoba two male tigers called Bajrang & Chota Matka fought & one got killed eventually in this fight at the same time one tigress named Maya which has been star attraction of tadoba as she used to be roamed around on road freely making tourists happy by her sighting, went on missing for nearly three months & declared by forest dept as dead eventually (supposedly)! With due respect to the forest dept’s system of numbering the tigers & not calling them by names which mostly are given by the locals, I still prefer to use names as that makes me more attached to the species! The first incident happened near a village in the buffer of tadoba & many villagers witnessed this fight of male tigers where the Bajran got killed by Chota Matka, who also got injured in the fight but thankfully survived! As well, search for missing tigress Maya is going on more than a month & forest dept has found remnants of tiger body which has been sent for DNA testing to confirm its of Maya only. On the social media both these news has been trolled, shared, debated (as usual) & you will say what’s big deal, tigers fight, so does street dogs & one tigress went missing & died, that’s nature & I don’t disagree with this stand of the most & there are far more numbers who doesn’t even took cognizance of these two news, so be it!
My sharing is for those who love wildlife & not just photographing it & for those who are ignorant about wildlife or their responsibility regarding the same! As somewhere Bajrang’s death in fight with Chota Mataka is related to our ignorance about wildlife at large as well Maya’s death if it’s not natural, to make us aware is my sharing! At the start, let me confess, my views or sharing about such incidents in the wild are the outcome of my exposure to wildlife, observation, information from people related to wildlife & my engineering logic, I may be wrong & people may differ from my opinion but object is awareness & not to blame some entity! Here I will share wordings about Maya & Bajrang’s case on FB without disclosing names just to give you an idea about the opinions on posts about them…
xxxx ji problem is not with glorification of single tigress. Problem is poor monitoring of tiger. She went missing since long time but search operations were carried out only after tourists started shouting that Maya is not to be seen anywhere. Why department needs tourists to tell this?
yyyy ji, there are over 100 tigers in TATR Landscape. Conservation does not mean that each one of the tigers is monitored on a daily basis.
For conservation to be effective, the total number of tigers in the landscape must remain a healthy constant or even increase.
Why aren't the tourists concerned about say some T53? Because that particular tiger may not be boldly walking on the road or may not be providing good photo opportunities.
Conservation is a science that needs to be understood by all of us and the role of tigers in an ecosystem should then be communicated to the other friends who have never been exposed and fascinated by our wilderness. Or else the wilderness is at stake and will soon be lost to development along with all its occupants - and not just a photogenic single tigress or tiger.
And this is just a zalak, a lot more has been going on!
About Bajrang’s death, though many will say it’s natural that two male tigers fight over territory & one is going to die or maim (Master Funakoshi); yet I will say that there is a third way too which is one of the tiger retreats & finds another area of forest as his territory. Those who don’t understand territory for them, every tiger has his own area demarcated just we have our farm lands & it doesn’t allow other tiger to enter in that area, just the way we also don’t allow another person or families to enter in our farmland to plough or harvest it! And in case some tiger’s ventures in to other tiger’s territory if its accidently then a warning is given by growling or mock attack but if the tiger wants to take over or invade another tiger’s territory then there is a fight to death. This is because in the society of humans there is a judicial system as well as an enforcement system which isn’t the case with the tigers so they have to make justice by their own self! Now, if this is nature & which is in place for hundreds or thousands of year that is ok but in last hundred years human named specie has intruded in the nature under the name of needs, growth, development & whatever we call it & this may not have directly related to the fight of two male tigers but we have reduced the space (read as forest) which is necessary for balancing the tiger population & now it’s not there so the fights have increased! Because on one side we are making Project Tiger where tigers are secured from humans but what about the increased population of these tigers, where is the space for them & this is why the present project tigers are now in reality are like open Zoos (with due respect to the authorities)! Unfortunately, only difference between Project Tiger & a Zoo is, in a Zoo if a tigress gives birth to cubs those cubs also remain caged in the Zoo but here, the new born tigers when grow either must fight for space with existing tiger or retreat & move out in the human’s jungle i.e., urban settlements around the project tiger forests’ & try to survive, in both cases outcome for such tiger is death, this is point of my sharing!
As take a look at the details about the fight between Bajrang & Chota Mataka, both are the tigers of such age which has no reason to die by natural death such as age or inability to hunt so going in some other tiger’s territory, so this is not natural death! Bajrang as per the locals as well forest dept’s guides & tourists’ inputs was of age some eight years & has been trying to settle in his own area but from every area he has been driven away by some dominant tiger & before the final fight he was trying to make kill that too of cattle in the area where Chota Matka was ruling! Both tigers were hunting cattle because both has been driven away from main forest by younger tigers & find easy to survive by killing cattle but when there also some other partner is introduced, well tigers are not social animals this also is nature & the result was fight to live & over cattle which is owned by humans, do we still call this as nature!!
About Maya’s death (if it's true) then she too was young to die naturally & her problem was there were nearly four male tigers roaming around means if she gets pregnant & has cubs then she will have to protect them from four tigers as another nature of a male tiger is it usually kills cubs from other male tiger, this is sheer nature1 So, last two litters of Maya has been killed by some or other male tigers in her area & she must have moved away at a secure place for pregnancy & got killed in the process from tigress in that area or again in process of protecting cubs from male tiger she must has lost life, if it's not a natural death! These are 'ifs & buts’ but as Maya used to live in a core area which is protected forest we can only guess why she has been moved from her own territory which she has retained for so many years will remain a misery & that’s not nature for sure! And then why four male tigers needed to be crowded within territory of one tigress is also we have to think over instead blaming nature, right?
This means if we are successful in making tigers grow in Tadoba forest is the good news then we are failing to provide the tigers the space they need to survive is my point of sharing & for that we can’t hold forest dept alone responsible. Forest dept is doing their all possible & one major thing they have done at tadoba is making humans there used to live along with the tigers & this is why Bajrang & Mataka could fought with each other’s even when their prey was owned by humans & at least one of them survived or else had it been fight with the humans then both would have been dead! Just by calling the death of a few tigers as nature won’t make us able to avoid our responsibility towards wildlife as every day, we are reducing space owned by tigers in every possible way is a bitter truth! Guys try to understand, if some human’s family resides in a 2 bhk flat & has one kid, & when another new member is born in the family then if we are unable to buy a 3 bhk flat to accommodate the new member then we make both siblings share one room & teach them to live that way but that’s what makes us humans & that is our nature but a tiger family can’t live with our ways of nature & outcome we are witnessing in the form of increased fights among tigers! High time to make tigers our family members & work on making them able to live by their nature rather than expecting them to learn our culture or way of living & for that lets take a pledge together, “No More Dead Bajrang;” adios with this note!
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
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