Tiger is burning out without a whimper

India’s tigers are losing ground by the day, forcing them to explore enemy environs. The enemy is us, who poach tigers and encroach on their land, reducing the big cats to just about 1,400 across the country.

Habitat loss and uncontrolled poaching of adult tigers have resulted in orphaned cubs, lacking hunting skills, starved and stupefied, entering human settlements to look for food. Such incidents are on the rise in areas around tiger reserves in Chandrapur district, Maharashtra’s tiger capital. The cubs that stray are mostly less than two years old, and motherless.

In recent incidents, a male and a female cub, both a year and a half, strayed into villages looking for food. The juvenile tigress entered the courtyard of one Ramaji Nikode of Sukhwasi village on the night of September 17. Nikode awoke on hearing strange sounds and found the animal in his yard. The starving animal attacked, but it was clumsy and Nikode overpowered it. Other villagers rushed in, tied the cub, and handed it over to forest officials.

Two days later, her brother entered the cattleshed of Balaji Chafle at Ganeshpipri, 5km from Sukhwasi and 80km from Chandrapur. Alerted by the cattle, Chafle locked up the shed and called neighbours and forest officers. The tiger attacked a calf but failed to kill it.
“We got a call at about 1:30am while on patrol,” said range forest officer VM More. “The cub was trapped at about 4am. Both cubs were weak with starvation.”

Both animals have been kept at the forest department’s office at Kothari, said Rama Rao, deputy conservator. A search was launched, but their mother could not be traced. The officers believe she may have been killed by poachers.

Fateh Singh Rathore, former field director of the Ranthambhore National Park and a pioneer in tiger conservation, said a cub wanders thus only when its mother is killed. “That the female was starving for over 10 days proves that the mother was poached,” he said.
It takes around three years for a tiger to leave its mother and start hunting for itself. “A cub less than three cannot fend for itself,” Rathore said. “Orphaned at such a tender age, the cubs either starve to death or stray into human settlements in search of food.”

Reports of Bawarias in the area have also given rise to the suspicion that the mother was killed. The Bawarias are a discriminated tribe from Haryana who are known to poach tigers. One group is believed to have camped at Shirpur in Andhra Pradesh, 30km from Ganeshpipri.

“Given the starvation period of the cubs, there is a strong possibility that their mother might have been poached,” said Nitin Desai, Central India director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.