Wildlife enthusiasts thronging tiger reserves may not always necessarily mean disturbance for the big cats. The alertness of a wildlife photographer from Telangana saved an injured tiger in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (Madhya Pradesh) from suffering more agony on Saturday.
Says lensman Kola Venkateswarlu of Kodad, popularly known as Bommala Venkanna, “I saw a sub-adult cub of Darha tigress in visible pain and struggling to remove the thorns stuck near its mouth apparently during a tussle with a porcupine the previous night.”
Venkanna was on one of his regular visits to the reserve when he spotted the cub. “Only when I looked at a close-up shot in my camera did I realise the gravity of the pain and immediately informed the forest guard who in turn alerted the Forest Range Officer,” he told The Hindu upon returning here on Sunday.
“The best part is that the forest officials reacted after seeing the photographs with unusual alacrity. They cordoned off the entire Khitauli range and barred all visitors thereafter. The elephants’ services were called to track the cub and the forest officials swung into rescue mode to give medical attention to the big cat that it badly needed,” says Venkanna, whose effort was duly appreciated by the officials.
Without timely intervention, Venkanna says, the tiger would have met a fatal end as it was nearly impossible for it to remove the porcupine quills on its own.
“In the reserve, any injured tiger is deemed half-dead and though there were some guides who were upset as they had to face the fury of the disappointed visitors in the zone yesterday, they were quick to realise that a fully fit tiger roaming in the zone is a more desired sight than an injured one,” he explains.
