The ground beneath their feet Understanding the Kanha Tiger Reserve

The responsibilities for managing a successful Reserve are immense. Dr Johnsingh describes the essentials that could make that all-important difference between survival and extinction.

- DR A.J.T. JOHNSINGH,

Langda, the six-year-old lame tiger, had eaten enough meat from the sambar doe, which he had killed in the Kisli Range in the famous Kanha Tiger Reserve in Central India. It was in April 1984 and the mid-day temperature soared to around 44 degrees Celsius and with a full belly, he opted for the best option to escape the heat of the day.

He lay immersed in the seepage from a talab (waterhole) hardly a kilometre from Kisli. My visit in April 1984, which was the first, to Kanha TR, was to attend the Cat Specialist Group meeting of the IUCN. I represented the Bombay Natural History Society with which I was working then. Other key members who attended the meeting, were late Billy Arjan Singh of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve and late Peter Jackson, Chairman of the Cat Specialist Group. When the presence of the tiger not far from Kisli was announced to the members attending the meeting, all rushed in vehicles to the elephants which were stationed not far from the sleeping tiger.

My companion on the back of the elephant was H.S. Pabla of the Indian Forest Service who then was working as the Deputy Director of the Reserve. Our mahout took the elephant directly to the tiger which lay on its back in the water, with only its face visible above the water. The sambar kill, hardly 3 meters away was almost fully covered by grass. As we observed the tiger, the mahout made a clicking sound with his tongue and the tiger opened its eyes, lazily looked at us and then closed the eyes to sleep again. Later he got up, waded and sat in the middle of the pool enabling people to photograph him. Soon after that, he faded into the jungle and we all returned to the meeting greatly delighted by the wonderful sighting of the tiger.