Panthera tigris tigris

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Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve

Every wildlife enthusiast, at some point, dreams of spotting a royal bengal tiger in the wild and there is no better place than in India with its numerous tiger sanctuaries of varying climes and terrain. Among all these there is one, almost in the heart of the nation, the jewel of Vidarbh, Tadoba National Park and Tiger Reserve. Also known as the "Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve" it is the oldest and largest National Park in the state of Maharashtra and one of 47 Project Tiger reserves existing in India.

Tadoba is a jungle where, early in the day, the sun follows one like a lodestar through the tangled heads of the trees and as the day progresses it burns with a blinding exquisiteness that makes us shield our eyes and bless our existence. The light is lustrous in the open spaces and seemed undistilled from heaven to earth seeming like a laser show at times as gem clear beams filter through the trees. The warmth of it settles over our faces like a silken mask and life is a golden joy. That is the thing about the seraph-light of this jungle; it can sweep down like the handloom of the gods one moment, pure and clear and long of line.

Tadoba lies in the Chandrapur district of Maharashtra state, once ruled by the Gond Kings in the vicinity of the Chimur Hills, and is approximately 150 km from the closest major city, Nagpur. The total area of the tiger reserve is 1,727 km², which includes the Tadoba National Park, created in the year 1955. The Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary was formed in the year 1986 and was amalgamated with the park in 1995 to establish the present Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve. The word 'Tadoba' is derived from the name of God "Tadoba" or "Taru," venerated by the local adivasi (tribal) people of this region and "Andhari" is derived from the name of the river Andhari flowing in this area. Legend holds that Taru was a village chief killed in a mythological encounter with a tiger. Taru was deified and a shrine now exists beneath a large tree on the banks of the Tadoba Lake. The temple is frequented by the adivasis between the months of December through January.

The park is open to visitors from October to June every season and remains closed every Tuesday. It is divided into three separate ranges - the Tadoba north range, Kolsa south range and the Moharli range sandwiched between the two. There are two lakes - Tadoba and Kolsa - and a river which are replenished by the monsoon every year sustaining the wildlife in the park. Rich in flora and fauna the vegetation is southern tropical dry deciduous and covers about 630 km². Teak and bamboo are prominent and the northern and western parts of the reserve are hilly and dense with deep valleys and a sprinkling of lush meadows. Home to some of central India’s best native woodland bird species, about 181 including endangered and water birds, the park also boasts leopards, sloth bear, the Indian bison (Gaur), Nilgai, Dhole, Striped Hyena, small Indian Civet, numerous Jungle Cats, Chital (Axis Deer), Sambhar, Barking Deer, Four-horned antelope, Marsh Crocodiles, a profusion of Langurs and Rhesus Macaques and a good measure of reptiles like the Indian Python, Cobra and numerous other species. Tadoba, unfortunately, also has a high rate of man tiger conflict. Several instances have also been reported of wildlife killing domestic livestock and there are villages still within the forest contrary to the efforts of the Forest department so we were told. Note it is man conflicting with nature and not the other way round.

As of August 2016, there were 88 royal bengal tigers in the reserve, and 58 in the forests immediately outside the reserve. A booming population supported by the incredible and diverse biodiversity making the reserve a paradise for tiger enthusiasts who have the choice of some of the best forest tracks in the country. This is not a reserve where one will say I saw a bengal tiger, here one will say I saw the Telia Sisters, I saw the huge Matkasur, I saw Maya. Tadoba today has probably the highest Sighting Rating Index (SRI) for the tigers in the country with SRI defined as the number of successful sighting safaris vs the total number of safaris undertaken in the last 28 days.

One such experience was ours, in 2017, in the Jamni grasslands teeming with wild boar, sambhar and chital, where Choti Tara, a royal bengal tiger, is l'attraction suprême. Choti Tara (also called Gauri) is a beautiful and big tigress in her prime, at around 7 years of age then. She was born to her mother Tara in a litter of four – one of her siblings, Okhaan, used to be spotted frequently in the Vasant Bandara area of Tadoba, but he disappeared a few years ago then. Choti Tara has a confident air about her and a very calm demeanor, yet when you see her you can sense you are in the presence of a mighty tigress. She is tough, and has been in fairly brutal fights with other tigresses, notably with the Ambat Heera female. Choti Tara has a big territory now and covers the area from close to Kolara gate & Jamni village, towards Kosaikanar, Jamunbodi, Chital Road, and until the Tadoba Guest House, Tar Road. I was also able to photograph her with her adorable cubs from Gabbar (Leopard Face), one male and one female. But that is a story for another time.

Our first meeting with Choti Tara was in the summer of 2017, as the golden disc of the sun rose over Tadoba and painted storks came in to perch along the shores of the lakes and the Irai Reservoir.

There are six gates into the this tiger paradise and we took the Moharli gate, the oldest entrance to the park, located approximately 180 kilometers away from Nagpur. Nine vehicles are allowed each morning and evening for the safari from this gate. In two hardy gypsies, we made our way into the jungle to find Choti Tara. The first protagonist we bumped into on this wild stage was a hungry sloth bear foraging breakfast. He was so engrossed that he paid us absolutely no mind and went about his business as if we weren’t there. This, in my opinion, is the best way to watch wildlife, you come you watch and you go away without disturbing the animal and the habitat. And the farther we ventured, the wilder it got and more animals and birds came out of their roosts to start their day after the night’s rest.

Backlit here, in the golden sunlight, is the beautiful Indian Pitta, a passerine bird native to the Indian subcontinent. It inhabits scrub jungle, deciduous and dense evergreen forest. It breeds in the forests of the Himalayas, hills of central and western India, and migrates to other parts of the peninsula in winter. Although very colourful, it is usually shy and hidden in the undergrowth where it picks insects on the forest floor. It has a distinctive two note whistling call which is heard at dawn and dusk. In the vernacular the pitta is named after its nine colors and the Sinhala interpretation of its call is that the bird is complaining about the theft of its dress by a peacock.

But I digress!

Our guide said Choti Tara had stalked and hunted a sambhar the previous evening and should still be at her kill. A royal bengal tiger can eat almost 45 kilos of meat a night and then go days before hunting again. Tigers are also an umbrella species which means that if one tiger is saved, at least 50 sq.kms. of forest is saved which automatically protects other wildlife thriving in that area too. The tiger also keeps a check on the population of herbivorous animals. It is the apex predator of the food chain. And if we were really lucky the apex predator would be there with her cubs. A few more kilometers go by on tenterhooks and then through the dense bamboo…

Was it her? Our guide was 100% confident and said this was where she had killed and had been feeding over night. A curious fact about tigers eating is that they start to eat the prey from behind. They first bite off the animal's tail. Then they make a small hole at the spot from where they wish to start eating. Then they use their molars to chew large pieces of loose meat. They do this very slowly and deliberately because their jaw bone cannot move laterally. It makes a tearing sound which is interspersed with the sound of bones crackling known as the masticating sound. Also after eating its fill, a tiger will cover its prey with grass and return for seconds over the next few days. So we sat and watched and heard her feed. Satisfied!

The tigress is a truly majestic creature. She is the alpha animal in the jungle and for good reason. She moves with a fluid grace that no other animal can match. Padding silently, she can creep up on any creature and kill them with a single swipe of her outsized paws. Once those thorn shaped claws rip at you, it is all but over. She is phantom silent and melts into the bush like molten gold into a cast. When she finds a good ambush site, she lurks in the shadows. Then she waits for prey to pass, observing everything with her glittering, feline eyes. When her target appears, she pounces with a coiled energy that is both fearsome and pitiless.

We saw Choti Tara’s dappled coat, sunrise-orange with bat-black stripes, through the dense bamboo and our pulse took an exponential jump when we realised she was going to get up. Satiated and rested, she got up. PAUSE! Now this is a moment one should definitely experience atleast once in their lifetime. Understanding what animals mean can be hugely beneficial for a wildlife enthusiast, especially since the subject is a lone master of disguise. When one is in a vast, dense jungle in India, and the tiger one hopes to document could be anywhere in that jungle, the only sense that can be relied on is hearing. Finding paw prints and signs of activity will show what happened on the night’s hunt, but once the animal vanishes into the tangled undergrowth the only way to track it is to stand and listen for a call. Not from the tiger itself, but an alarm call from potential prey alerting their fellow animals to the location of the predator. This is a phenomenon one has to experience, but first, what exactly is an alarm call?

Alarm calls are calls given by animals lower in the food chain, potential prey animals, when they detect the movement of an apex predator. Monkeys, deer and even birds give alarm calls. It is a very short, high pitched and high intensity call. When an apex predator, a tiger or a leopard, is spotted these alarm calls warn the herd that the predator is on the prowl. So when we hear these, we listen for the intensity, how far the call has come from and how reliable it is. What do I mean by reliable? One of the first and most useful vocal indicators are the Bandar Log - Hanuman Langurs, perched in the high branches able to see the predator from afar, who amazingly use a barking alarm call for leopards and a different call for tigers. Their call indicates that a predator is on the move and by finding the direction of their gaze the general direction of the predator can be gauged. Experienced guides can also determine, based on the intensity and tone of the call, whether the predator is a tiger or a leopard. Chital, favourite prey of tigers, quickly respond to the langurs call and begin a persistent barking of their own. And finally one of the most defined calls to listen for when tracking is given by sambar deer, who make a guttural squeak and stamp their feet when they spot the tiger. And when the tiger is out on the hunt this is an explosion of alarm calls from different animals that echoes through the jungle.

With that said hit play, close your eyes and listen. It starts with a Langur hesitantly raising the alarm - maybe he has spotted those dreaded stripes whispering through the tall grass - the dappled light plays tricks. The call is then picked up by the chital and then almost a minute later, a sambhar! Now the tiger has definitely been spotted. The intensity grows, the chital, the sambhar call more fervently and then you hear it!

Choti Tara stood up behind the bamboo and the jungle exploded with sound. We strained our necks and wrangled with our driver on which way she would head. Cameras started going off in rapid bursts as she made up her mind. We didn’t know it at the time but she had a definite objective she was headed for and slowly, gracefully she made her way there. We, the spectators, could only follow in her trail.

What you see here around her neck is her radio collar and this gives her the name of “Collarwali“ or the “one with the collar“ - The Collared Tigress. In the early years of the last decade, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) came together with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)/ Project Tiger to track and study the behaviour of tigers dispersing from the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR). Scientist and expert on big cats from WII, Dr. Bilal Habib and Dr. Parag Nigam led the project and their plan was to study where the dispersing tigers go, breed and have their prey base. The Tass (about 60 kms from Nagpur) tigress, which was rescued from an open canal well on October 13, 2011 and radio-collared before its release in the wild on November 27, seems to have shown the way. It was the first successful experiment in the country of a tigress being rescued and released successfully after collaring. The tigress had reached the doorstep of Tadoba reserve a month after its release. On October 17, 2014, Chhoti Tara, the first tigress was collared in TATR, and two days later they were able to collar a male of mysterious lineage and known by several names – Leopard Face, Sher Khan and Gabbar. And in mid June 2018, over one weekend, their 26 month old cubs were collared as well. Collaring data has helped the WII, Project Tiger and the Forest Departments know connectivity, tiger corridors and threats tigers face in the entire Tadoba landscape and what measures need to be taken to protect them.

Choti Tara, in the meantime, made her meandering way marking trees, first on one side of the track and then the other. Tigers mark their territories by spraying bushes and trees with a special mixture of urine and scent gland secretions. They also leave scratch marks on trees. An interesting point to note is that while marking territory tigers spray upwards at nostril level of a grown tiger so that other tigers can get a whiff of the scent easily. The size of a tiger's territory depends on the amount of food available, and usually ranges from about 26-78 sq. km. Tigers are intensely territorial and cannot be replaced from their territory till death. Although tigers usually live alone, tiger territories can overlap. A male tiger's territory usually overlaps those of several female tigers.

A thing or two about this dappled coat, sunrise-orange with bat-black stripes, rippling muscles and a tail that flicks just before she charges. Tigers have thick fur that varies in color, but is generally a burnished orange with vertical black stripes. Their stomachs, chests, and parts of their faces are white with black stripes. The fur around the neck and chest grows thicker, but not quite as long as a lion’s mane. Most tigers have more than hundred stripes. The stripes on the tiger's body act as camouflage, and help them hide in the tall grass while hunting. These stripes are like human fingerprints; no two tigers have the same pattern of stripes. The tiger's stripes would still remain on the skin even after shaving off all the fur.

In our eyes, a tiger’s stripes are very distinctive and bold. However, drop that pattern in a stand of tall grasses, with partial sunlight dappling through the trees and that sleek cat becomes nearly invisible. This is, of course, beneficial when stalking prey. The closer the cat can get to it’s prey before it attacks, the more likely it is to be successful.

After making her leisurely way for a kilometer or so she decided she’d had enough and headed of into the tangled undergrowth. We were left wondering and took some time to recover. We looked around and realised we were in an area with low rolling hills and ridges, densely wooded. Our guide said Choti Tara was, in all likelihood, heading up to a waterhole on the ridge. So off we went in search of a track leading up to the ridge leaving the sundry residents of the jungle still keeping a wary eye in the direction of her disappearance.

We got to the ridge and there was deafening silence. It was clear that Choti Tara had not yet made her appearance but then where was she? Ears strained for the slightest of sounds, a foolish exercise, considering she pads in complete silence. The jungle had a distinctive smell, like a jasmine-and-gingerbread fragrance, a floral fragrance mixed with the loamy must of rotting logs. The light filtered through the boughs with a spectral aura as we came up on the waterhole and decided to wait there.

She must have been stalking us for a while, treading behind us as silent as a wraith. When her great, convex head poked through a bush on the ridge it was mesmerising. A pair of smouldering, chatoyant eyes scanned our party, maybe trying to establish which among us was the easiest of prey. They were feral of gaze and implacable, two bright orbs of doubloon-gold. She padded out of the brush with a balletic grace, shoulders bunched and muscles rippling. Her transverse stripes blended perfectly into her surroundings, breaking up her silhouette. I could see why she was the jungle’s apex predator when she flashed her giant fangs. She looked deep into our souls, whisked her tail and made her way to the waterhole across from us.

And then suddenly her ears pricked and she looked off in a direction away from us. Did she hear something? We obviously didn’t and I had the feeling we couldn’t as well. So I looked it up and discovered that tigers can hear below the human limit of 20Hz. These low-pitched calls, called "infrasound," can travel long distances, spreading nearly 5 kilometers, resonating through dense forests, and even passing through mountains. The lower the frequency, the farther the distance the sound can travel. Scientists believe that infrasound is the missing link in studying tiger communication. In our case here, it was a mother responding to her cubs calling and shortly thereafter she picked herself out of the water hole and made her way back into the jungle.

This then was our close encounter with the collared tigress, the queen of the Jamni grasslands. but this was not to be the last, and when we met next, Choti Tara introduced her cubs to us but that is a story for the second part.

After Choti Tara left, and it was clear that she had left the area because the entire jungle settled, a sense of relief permeated and the sundry denizens came out in number to forage and frolic.

to be continued…

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