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Late one evening in May 1970 — just two years before the crucial Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 came into effect — an Indian tea-planter sat crouched in a ‘machan’ on a silver oak tree in a tea field on the outskirts of Munnar, waiting for what he thought was a panther to return to its ‘kill’.
Soon the tell-tale sound of bones being crunched below was heard. Giving the predator time to settle down to its meal, the planter steadied himself, raised his rifle and signalled to his companion to turn on a powerful flashlight. They were taken aback to find a tiger feeding on the ‘kill’. Unable to resist the temptation, the planter shot it, pumping in no less than three bullets to ensure that it was dead. Tragically, it turned out to be a tigress which the planter then unabashedly paraded around atop his car. I happened to be one of the many spectators — and perhaps the only one to be anguished by the sight.
What made the killing truly condemnable is that the number of tigers in Munnar’s tea estates has always been minuscule, seldom exceeding 3 to 5 at the best of times. And the felled tigress was reportedly young enough to produce at least 2 or possibly 3 litters. There couldn’t have been a more disastrous blow to local conservationists’ efforts to build up the tea town’s tenuous tiger population.
Despite this grave setback, the number of tigers in Munnar’s hills and the adjacent Eravikulam National Park has increased marginally over the years as evidenced by camera trap images and reported sightings, giving the local conservation drive a much-needed fillip. In 2012, two tiger cubs were found abandoned by their mother iin a tea field just outside of town — she had apparently fled at the approach of a large group of workers. The foundlings were rescued and sent to the Wildlife Centre at the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Thekkady.
In 2010, for the first time in living memory, a female tea-picker was attacked by a tiger in broad daylight on a tea estate 10 km from Munnar, and lived to tell the terryfing tale. She is believed to have courageously fought off the beast with her bare hands before the other workers, hearing her cries, rushed to her rescue and thrashed it. Unfortunately, the big cat succumbed to its injuries. It was well past its prime and, being pretty old, had lost most of its teeth which had apparently incapacitated it considerably, impeding it from hunting its normal prey. Interestingly, numerous porcupine quills were found embedded in its body — the result of preying on the rodent as perhaps a last resort.
Returning to his estate late one evening a few years back, a planter was shocked to find a full-grown tiger padding along ahead of him, in the full glare of his jeep’s headlights, on the busy Munnar-Coimbatore highway. For a few fleeting seconds he gazed wonderstruck at the ‘apparition’ before the big cat loped into a tea field and disappeared from view.
One morning in April 2004, a planter-friend excitedly burst into my office to inform me that, an hour earlier, while motorcycling through his tea estate a tiger had suddenly crossed his path, all but grounding him and his two-wheeler! It later killed a cow and feasted on it for a couple of days. Along with a conservationist-friend I inspected the ‘kill’ in a large eucalyptus plantation interspersed with dense lantana. The cow lay on its side with its head twisted in the manner typical of a tiger’s attack, its abdomen torn open hideously. We never suspected that the predator was holed up in its lair across a stream nearby until a low menacing growl gave it away, and we made ourselves scarce!
Some tiger sightings have been reported from the unlikeliest of places. In 2005, passengers travelling in an autorickshaw encountered a tiger one morning on the busy Munnar-Kochi highway hardly 5 km from Munnar. More recently, another was found haunting the vicinity of a local planter’s bungalow for several nights. And there’s also the driver who, while waiting just outside the town for his car’s overheated engine to cool, saw a large tiger drag the carcass of a wild pig across the road and into the adjacent undergrowth. Soon the petrified man clearly heard the sound of flesh being torn apart and fled, leaving his car behind.
Nothing can be scarier than the blood-curdling growl of a tiger which I once heard – unforgettably and repeatedly – while trout-fishing one evening at a lake in a local tea estate. As the sound grew more menacing and I heard the feline crashing through the underbrush, my driver and I fled to the safety of our jeep parked well above the lake. From that vantage point we waited for it to emerge, hoping to get a glimpse of it. However, sensing our presence, the wily cat tarried for several minutes until a colossal bank of mist had blanketed the lake and wiped out visibility — a common occurrence there. Only then did it emerge to slake its thirst, thus depriving us of even a glimpse of it and only giving us the satisfaction of hearing it noisily slurping up water in the eerie pre-dusk silence. I’m convinced it was a classic example of wild wisdom.
“Meeshapuli Malai” — which literally translates to “The Hill Of The Bewhiskered Tiger” — used to be a remote, inaccessible area high up in the hills and far away from the beaten track before it was discovered by trekkers. Known to be home to a couple of tigers (after which it’s named) as well as sambar and other prey, the whereabouts of these felines are now unknown thanks to the intrusion of large groups of tourists hiking through the area as part of the treks that the Forest Department conducts in a bid to boost its revenue. Sadly, the Forest Department doesn’t seem to realise that it has done a grave disservice to the cause of wildlife conservation in Munnar by allowing tourists access to virginal and highly sensitive tiger territory (which was earlier largely untrodden by humans), even though it is well-known that Munnar’s tiger population has always been precarious.
Sadly, the fact that the tiger is our national animal doesn’t guarantee its safety and security any more than if it weren’t. Today it’s under threat from humans as never before, and it would be nothing short of a national tragedy if it were to be wiped out in the wild.
Thankfully, “Mannavan Shola” around 35 km from Munnar is also known to shelter 2 or 3 tigers which appear to have migrated from the adjoining Kodaikanal hills — probably ‘evicted’ by the burgeoning development there.
The Eravikulam National Park, of course, does have its own small concentration of tigers, reportedly numbering around 4 to 5. Thanks to stringent restrictions placed on entry into the core area of the park, disturbance to the big cat and its prey base has been minimal. However, these tigers are known to migrate to the adjoining tea estates as well as to the Anamalais Wildlife Sanctuary which borders the ENP, making it difficult to obtain a reliable count.
Photographic records and entries in visitors’ journals indicate that only four tigers were shot during the British era in Munnar as part of a strictly regulated practice of trophy hunting. Considering that this spans a period of well over a century, the figure is quite negligible compared to present-day statistics relating to tiger casualties arising from poaching and other causes. The beautifully mounted heads of tigers — relics from the days of the Raj — can still be seen in most planters’ clubs in Munnar, Kodaikanal and the Nilgiris.
Our national animal, the tiger (‘Panthera tigris’) is the largest of the cat species. with an adult male weighing up to 300 kg. It has a lifespan of around 14 to 18 years and males are known to be fiercely territorial, declaring an area their own by leaving traces of their urine on tree trunks. Males will seldom allow another to share their territory, let alone usurp it. Females, on the other hand, are known to be more tolerant to living with other females in the same territory.
Mostly nocturnal in its habits, the tiger is an ambush-predator, relying on the camouflage its stripes provide. It generally preys on the sambar, chital, barking deer, and wild pig. It usually takes to killing livestock and humans only as a last resort, when injured or incapacitated by old age or for want of natural prey. Some adult tigers have incisors as long as 7 cm — quite a fearsome weapon for felling its quarry.
Unlike other felines, tigers like to be near water and prefer to cool off in jungle pools and streams. It is said that, like human fingerprints, no tiger has the same pattern of stripes as another. And in terms of sheer majesty, many believe that it surpasses even the lion.
With only around 2,500 tigers estimated to be left in the wild in India, the IUCN has declared it an endangered species. Continuing loss of habitat, compounded by prey depletion, brings the big cat into conflict with humans as it attacks domestic animals and sometimes people in its quest for food. In retaliation, it’s often clandestinely killed by irate villagers, usually by poisoning.
Aggravating the problem further (and fuelling greed among poachers) is the increasing demand for the tiger’s skin and body parts in the illegal international market that is flourishing in South-east Asia. Traditional Chinese medicine is known to covertly make extensive use of the big cat’s body parts for a variety of medicinal purposes and even as an aphrodisiac. And a tiger’s pelt is still prized as a decorative showpiece to add glamour to a sitting-room.
Perhaps the biggest blow to the tiger conservation drive in India is China’s recent decision to once again spur trade in the big cat’s body parts by lifting the ban on their use in traditional medicine. Undoubtedly, this will lead to an increase in demand and, consequently, poaching. The occasional seizure of tiger skins and body parts that one hears of is possibly only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, much of the poaching presumably going undetected. Harsher deterrents are needed to combat poachers, and anti-poaching squads should be given far more powers to tackle this grave menace effectively.
With its population declining in India alongside the expected surge in demand for its body parts from China and South-east Asia, the tiger doesn’t seem destined to “burn bright” indefinitely. A pessimistic outlook no doubt, but grim reality cannot be wished away. For despite the unrelenting and thankless work of national and international conservation agencies, the ongoing crusade to save “Old Stripes” can never fully succeed without strong and committed political will.
Sadly, the fact that the tiger is our national animal doesn’t guarantee its safety and security any more than if it weren’t. Today it’s under threat from humans as never before, and it would be nothing short of a national tragedy if it were to be wiped out in the wild.
Overall, it does appear too optimistic to hope for a future where we can live in harmony with the tiger.
