Fairy Tale of UKWS!

 

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“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
― Albert Einstein.

No introduction is needed for Mr Einstein yet apart from being one of the most intelligent brains ever alive he was a philosopher, kind hearted good human being & he believed in things like fairy tales! I have used his wisdom many times but the above words are just tailor-made for this sharing which is about Fairies, though they are tigresses (what else) & one (rather many) might say how can a fearsome, deadly, dangerous animal like a tiger can even be called a Fairy! But then all such people (read as humans) haven’t understood neither the concept Fairy nor wildlife, is what I will say! Ok, this sharing is about wildlife & tigers & people around forests (don’t worry, it’s not about Tadoba) & this time the forest is Umred Karhandala Wildlife Sanctuary popularly known as UKWS, though unfortunately been in the news for the wrong reasons of late! Most of you must have come across a clip where a tigress with five cubs is walking in between gipsies with title as rare sight of six tigers in tadoba which actually is from UKWS & the clip has been wrongly interpreted by the authorities as the path of tigress with small cubs has been blocked by the tourist vehicles etc etc! Well, that is not subject of sharing as I have already shared my view about it but the subject is the tigress in that clip, F2 is her name, which is by the forest dept & locals call her by name Fairy 2, that’s why the reference of Fairy tales!

The name Fairy 2 has been given by her blood line as her mom was Fairy, a tigress which took IKWS on the world map of wildlife. There was a time, nearly eight years back, first images of a tigress carrying five tiny cubs boldly on the narrow roads (mind these details) of UKWS surfaced on social media, which was FB only then. Sadly our (India’s) wildlife is tiger centric & I am not a judge to comment right or wrong but fact remains every person going to wildlife sanctuaries unless its birding or aqua wildlife wants to see a tiger & seeing six tigers together is not something you get to see often! No wonder, UKWS not only came on the wildlife map, but the entire social life changed here as the tourists started flowing in & came along, the money! If you are not familiar with the geographic location of UKWS (most of you are certainly not) Umred is known for its mineral rich grounds but now many know the forests here are corridors for ages connecting wildlife in Tadoba or Andhra forests or even MP forests. Tigers were here all the time but most of them have been in transit form, rarely making these forests as their home & that’s why UKWS was never on ranking charts of places to be visited for the wildlifers. But come Fairy & things changed as here is a tigress walking boldly on the roads unfazed by the gypsies surrounding her & that too with five cubs which are growing fast. And where in neighbouring forests of Tadoba the cubs are getting separated from their mom in mere one & half years, here there is no pressure of mating from many male tigers around these cubs that have remained with Fairy for nearly two & half years. Outcome was, in the period just before separation when these six tigers used to walk together it’s like a gang of big tigers moving around making the tourists awe about the sight they are looking at & I also was one of them! I have seen Fairy with her five cubs when the cubs were one & half years old & they had problems fitting themselves on the roads of UKWS.

This is why Fairy name must have been given to this tigress as UKWS was a poor sanctuary with its location cut-off from developed urban world, money was scares here & so was tiger sighting but Fairy changed that scene overnight & a place which wasn’t having even a decent hotel for stay now has nearly more than twenty resorts including MTDC! Now you can understand the sentiments of the people towards this tigress which is fondly called as Fairy, as she has changed lives of thousands of these people for good purpose bringing happiness in their families by mere her presence around! For those who doesn’t know details of UKWS, it has two zones Karhandala & Gothengaon & there is another gate Pauni which is on other side of highway but Fairy made her home for the zones of Gothangaon & Karahandala all alone with entire area for herself. This is the story of Fairy 1 & the problem with such cases is once the cubs are grown-up & dispersed to find their own territory then suddenly the sightings get reduced & again tourists dry up, especially when the spread of your forest is small like UKWS has. With Fairy, what she did is unique, she took a step back & gave away parts of the entire forest to her two female siblings one of which is current F@ i.e. Fairy2. Now UKWS has three tigresses with cubs, the Karhandla zone there is a tigress which is known as X1, while Gothengaon zone is ruled by F2 i.e. Fairy 2 & Fairy herself has taken shelter in a corner of forest which extends towards Pavani gate & even buffers.

 Best part of this Fairy tale is about the legacy which F2 is taking ahead as to the surprise of all the wild lifers, few months back tigress F2 appeared on the narrow roads of UKWS (again don’t miss the detailing) with five tiny cubs toddling along & for once the locals thought Fairy herself has appeared as this is the sight for which tourists flock the place & wait for days! And in one such flocking of the tourists the earlier mentioned clip got viral & caused a lot of botheration for the forest dept as well locals too! Coming to the price of being a Fairy which not many tourists are interested in but is very much there & which I witnessed during my recent trip to Gothengaon. Giving birth to five cubs at a time & making them grow is one of the hardest jobs beyond imagination of our human brains also. First, to give them birth all alone, no maid-servant to look after them & then standing to their basic demands like hunger & thirst. When five cubs are there the mom tigress can’t afford them to breast feeding for long as that takes her entire energy out. At the same time, imagine every day you have to feed six stomachs’ that too of the tigers, so each day F2 (and earlier F i.e. Fairy) has to move around for hunting & then the stress of keeping her tiny cubs which are jumping around all the time, behind with nobody to guard them. Indeed, fortunately unlike Tadoba the threats from other predators as well other male tigers are lesser at UKWS yet the cubs are exposed to many dangers such as snake bite & water-bodies to fall in. And the mom has to keep herself safe as well as fit because even if you are queen of forest, it’s just a tag as there is no servant to serve you food here! Recently F2 got injured during a wild boar kill & her nose was swollen with a cut also which was clearly visible when I clicked her. She was in pain but five cubs were in playing mode & the mom in her has to do the job keeping her pain aside. Poor queen, she played with the cubs for a while & the guide told me she hasn’t ate much from the earlier kill as it was as small fawn of deer which was barely enough for the cub, so she was hungry & all she did was got away from the cubs & rested in water body to ease her pain. The wound is at her nose where she couldn’t even lick, the best medicine for the wild animals & yet she put on the show for her cubs, that’s what Fairy is!

Coming to tourism & its so-called disturbance aspect, something I can’t skip from sharing! We have taken a full day safari which means just two vehicles were inside after the morning safari in the entire forest. We saw F2 resting & her cubs playing around but the tigress was fast asleep. And the moment afternoon safari vehicles came inside the forest she was awake on her own & came on the road like she was waiting to put on the show for the tourists as she understood her duty towards the local people also whose earnings (read as life) depends on tiger sightings of the tourists! I am not a man of emotions & understand the hardships of wildlife yet when I was watching F2 bravely putting up the show on all fronts keeping her all pain & troubles aside from my camera lens, my eyes were wet, witnessing the sufferings & hardships the tigress was paying for being Queen of UKWS, & I saluted her from my heart! At the same time those who says wildlife tourism is disturbance to the tigers then with due respect F2 rather seems enjoying people around her & she seems to feel protected in their presence as her cubs are safe now under the eyes of the tourists & guides & gypsy drivers as she left for the hunt leaving her cubs in the hands of us, this is what actual field observance of mine & not some office seated Chat-Gpt writing! At the same time, I might have experienced this behaviour of F2 by accident but the guides & drivers confirmed this is the way she always behaves, which means rather than getting offended or disturbed by the safari vehicles the tigress is rather comfortable with them, & doesn’t look at tourists as intruders rather trusts them that in their presence her cubs will be safe! Another logic to confirm my this statement is, if F2 feels that when she is on walk on road with her cubs the gypsies obstructed her path then she wouldn’t have ever let her cubs out when the vehicles are around but scene is different, every day she is bringing them on road when the gipsies are around, what this indicates, is the question I want to ask all those who hail wildlife tourism as obstruction to wildlife! One reason is, F2 herself is familiar with safari vehicles & tourists cameras focused on ger every move since when she was a cub & she knows this is part of her forest now & she is ok with it, what else we can than this but coexistence!

Yet this doesn’t mean we block the tiger’s path or disturb it or refrain any wild animal from its right on the forest. But that can’t be achieved without following some basic simple rules which can differ from park to park as per geographic situations of the respective forest. In UKWS the roads are very narrow & either we can widen them a bit or we can follow self-discipline by which everybody can have tiger’s sighting by turn keeping our greed away for the best shot! As scene there is such that if F2 or any tiger is on road then only two or three gipsy’s tourists can watch the tiger & those behind will be left with just some part of tigers in sight & if they click photos of such sighting then it’s tagged as obstruction of tiger or wild animals which is not the case actually! High time for forest dept to form a committee of experts who won’t make policies with a biased mind on either aspect of wildlife tourism & define the rules which will make wildlife tourism a fun or say a path for coexistence for all concerned. If forest dept is having some issues on this, the Hon High Court please intervein proactively & ask the forest dept to make right guidelines for individual forest as well at large but with right mindset about wildlife at large & not just some aspect of it.

Will use a quote for first time in twelve years of my writings to conclude,

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman; & here in the story of Fairy of UKWS, the dragon means our wrong attitude toward entire wildlife, is all I want to say as that will be the right end rather start of this Fairy tale of UKWS, adios for now!

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 Sanjay Deshpande 

smd156812@gmail.com

Sanjeevani Dev.

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