India

Following tiger tracks in the wilds of India

Amar Grover 31 Oct 2015 00:01:00

In the sun-dappled forest stretching beyond a grove of lush bamboo I could have sworn I glimpsed a burst of pumpkin-orange and dark stripes. Or did I? It was hard to tell. Our open-topped Gypsy — a pale imitation of a classic safari Land Rover — moved at speed along an unmetalled track fringed mostly in an eerie green gloom. Beyond it lay gullies, streams and rocky outcrops. Our sharp-eyed park ranger scanned the ever- changing palette of shade and shadow with accustomed eyes. He’d already spotted almost invisible deer and boar but he was mainly primed for tiger.

Out here in the forests of central India, the tiger tops not just the food chain but the spotting chain. For most visitors a sighting is the ultimate trophy. The prize generally requires luck and patience, and as far as Panthera tigris is concerned, my luck over the years has proved timid. So despite three days of morning and afternoon drives in Bandhavgarh, I managed not to see a lingering tigress and her playful cubs — while a just-arrived couple had them for half an hour. In Ranthambore, the male tiger lounging atop a medieval fortress pavilion was not to be. And at Satpura, I’ve had to console myself with sighting merely a sloth bear. Not that it’s ever put me off returning time and again to explore India’s array of tiger reserves. Many of these 47 national parks are beautiful, remote and, unless you happen to be prey, offer some of the nation’s most tranquil countryside.

This time I was venturing through one still little known to international visitors. The Tadoba Andhari Reserve lies in the state of Maharashtra, which stretches from the Arabian Sea deep into central India. It’s one of the largest, yet receives relatively few visitors, and its large lake adds more scenic variety — and birds — than most reserves. According to Julian Matthews, “eco-entrepreneur”, conservationist and director of TOFT (Travel Operators for Tigers, an industry initiative to support better tourism and conservation practices, and empower local communities), it’s the next big thing in tiger tourism. “Sightings,” he continues, “are good and the government has been efficient in relocating villagers.” Tadoba has recently gained some decent accommodation after access roads improved.

Today in reserves such as Tadoba, there is reason to cheer. After an unprecedented operation involving lengthy field surveys and hundreds of camera traps, the latest National Tiger Conservation Authority census suggests a significant (if not almost too good to be true) increase in their population to 2,226. Officially, at least, a greater political commitment to the tigers’ cause and improved protection has reaped dividends. While that census’s methodology and results have been questioned, few doubt that tiger numbers do, finally, appear to be increasing from a critical low reported in 2006.

“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.” George Bernard Shaw’s aphorism neatly sums up the tiger’s historical predicament and I was reminded of it as we reached Tadoba. Several tiny memorials to deceased villagers — all victims of tiger attacks — stand by the Kolara Gate entrance. Rishin Basu Roy, our

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accompanying naturalist guide, explained how at least one was killed in 2013 when foraging for firewood within the reserve. It’s believed he came upon a tigress with cubs; unsurprisingly she took no chances.

Incidents like this help underline the bigger picture of the main threats confronting the species: poaching and diminishing habitat. Basu Roy reckoned that China’s penchant for traditional “medicine” (quackery to you and me) fuelled 99 per cent of the poaching, much of it now done to order, while the increasingly fragmented forests were driven by a growing population, encroaching farmland and mining companies. Here, though, we rounded a corner to reach open grassland that barely a year earlier was under cultivation. In the distance stood a few low buildings, remnants of a village whose occupants had recently been relocated out of the reserve.

Just as I digested this, our ranger stood bolt upright in the front. Grabbing binoculars, he pointed to a spot in the long, tawny grass off to our left. We all leapt up, as did the occupants of several other vehicles that quickly clustered alongside. I caught a fleeting glimpse of tiger paws up in the air as their owner rolled about contentedly. Seconds later, she reappeared about a hundred metres away casually strolling parallel to our track — not a particularly close or vivid sighting but a sighting nonetheless. My luck had turned; I’d been in the reserve barely 30 minutes.

Of Tadoba’s 1,700 square kilometres only about 20 per cent are accessible to visitors, a figure broadly similar to that of other reserves. Unlike many reserves, though, Tadoba was never a royal hunting ground but rather just a minute part of the vast homeland of the Gond tribal group. Named after a local Gond deity, Tadoba’s pretty lake is the centrepiece of much of the area’s best scenery.

Early next morning we re-entered the reserve and skirted one side of its clear placid waters. Mist and low cloud dissipated in brilliant sunshine as a crocodile slid into the shallows. Occasionally we paused, engine off, simply to listen. The distinctive alarm calls of sambar and chital deer are one way of locating prowling tigers. Basu Roy noted that in Tadoba’s more touristy ranges, the cats had become so habituated to visitors that they sometimes appeared to make use of vehicles as cover to stalk and ambush prey.

We headed on, winding through thick glades of bamboo and strands of teak. To the amusement of our ranger and driver, the one species that exerted an enduring mix of fascination and horror was the spider. The forest was full of large golden silk orb-weavers clinging to huge webs for which they’re famed. Here it was like the Lord of the Rings special effects department. Not only did they hang to the left and right but even above our heads (occasionally we had to duck) the ribbon of sky was dotted with yet more, all creepily still and patient. Basu Roy announced cheerfully that the spider count was worse just after the monsoon.

Tadoba isn’t far from Pench Tiger Reserve — put on the map by the BBC’s Tiger Spy in the Jungle in 2008 — so you can easily combine them in a twin-park option. Leaving after an early breakfast I reached Pench, in the neighbouring hearttland state of Madhya Pradesh, the home to the Jungle Book tales, by lunchtime.

With an array of lodges, from budget to luxury, Pench’s latest place to stay is the recently opened Jamtara Wilderness Camp which, uniquely, lies just outside the park’s Jamtara Gate. It’s a discretely luxurious place beside an utterly rural and rarely visited corner of the park. Effectively, guests have exclusive access to a huge tract of Pench separated by the Pench River from its more visited zones.

Twelve spacious and well-spaced tent-cottages stand among groves of shady arjun trees beside seasonal streams. Reclaimed wooden flooring (acquired from Gujarat’s famous shipbreaking yard) and handsome desks (salvaged from a clear-out of Delhi’s Supreme Court) lend the camp a long-established air. An open-sided lounge pavilion, communal dining around a long mango-wood table, and campfire drinks beneath a huge banyan tree offer character and camaraderie.

Proprietor Amit Sankhala has tiger conservation and tourism in his blood. Kailash Sankhala, his grandfather, was a renowned naturalist and founding director of India’s Project Tiger in 1973. He became known as the “Tiger Man of India”, while his son also pursued tourism and conservation interests.

Sankhala is canny enough to take a notably holistic approach to the region’s appeal. In our “downtime” when not out on safari,

we set off with a naturalist guide on foot to explore the camp’s rural hinterland and glean some insight into local village life. One minute we were examining day-old tiger scat on a forest trail; a little later I was sipping tea in the low-slung porch of a dinky house amid piles of gleaming ears of corn.

The camp has also embraced the local farmers’ tradition of using machaans — stilted shacks in fields for villagers to keep an eye on crops — by erecting a lofty version topped with a canopied bed screened with mosquito nets. This is the “star bed”, an idea Sankhala readily admits he borrowed from Africa and adapted for India. For him it’s a way of offering an experience and solving a problem. A local farmer is being paid not just to host the star bed on his nearby field but not to cultivate the field either, thus encouraging more animal movement between the park’s core and buffer zones.

It was an unforgettable night up in the star bed. Armed with a torch, hot-water bottle (November to January nights can be surprisingly chilly) and horn (to alert my watchman stationed in a regular machaan across the field if it all got too much), I settled down. A few owls flapped past and queer unidentified rustlings emanated from below. Dozing off under an inky pin-holed sky, I’ll never know if a passing sloth bear — easily the most worrying animal around here because of its strength and unpredictability — had snuffled around nearby.

Next morning in Pench I had an unexpected sighting. Having clocked wild dogs and jackals, we slowed by a ravine as some chital barked in alarm. Our driver fleetingly glimpsed a prowling tiger barely 30 metres away on the left. Then, to our right and astonishment, a bold male leopard appeared moving stealthily among the rocks and trees. Indian tigers and leopards tend to avoid each other, the latter being very wary of the former.

Back at camp, Sankhala relished our luck. For every ten tiger sightings there’s just one of a leopard. In my own jungle book, it felt like I’d finally turned a page.

Need to know Amar Grover was a guest of Greaves India (020 7487 9111, greavesindia.co.uk). An eight-night itinerary costs from £2,560pp, including international flights to Mumbai, domestic flights to Nagpur, two nights’ B&B in Mumbai, three nights’ full board at Svasara Jungle Lodge in Tadoba, three nights’ full board at Jamtara Wilderness Camp in Pench, nature and village walks with naturalists, cooking classes, seven game viewing excursions and all transfers.

Related Images

A Bengal tiger prowls the Tadoba Andhari Reserve

Alamy

A machaan at the Jamtara camp in the Pench Tiger Reserve