Photo courtesy my life's companion!
Recently I learnt there are 1400 tigers left in India (1331 if the experts on NDTV are to be believed), by official estimate. And since this is not a count of the deaths due to famine, drought, earthquake, flood etc, it’s likely to be an overestimate. Pronto, I packed my bags and set off for Ranthambore, hoping to see the great animal before it went extinct altogether.
To cut to the chase, I saw a tiger alright. In fact, I saw five of them, or, 0.38% of the official tiger population. This is important, since what I am going to say now is statistically significant: What on earth was Blake talking about? The big cats I saw were precisely that: big cats. Somewhat lethargic, with dull fur, and certainly smaller than I’d imagined the tiger would be. Makes you wonder does it not, what on earth possessed an Englishman who had only spent one day outside London during his lifetime, to write about a tiger?
Which brings me to my indictment of sanctuaries in general and ‘Project Tiger’ in particular: both of them noble no doubt in theory, but poor in execution.
Project Tiger was launched to save Indian Tigers from extinction- and its testimonial reads- 1827 tigers at inception, 1400 tigers 36 years later. Only if you are a wide eyed optimist, or want to indulge in semantics, would you think this cause to pop champagne. And if you buy the logic of Born Free, as I do, it’s hard to support the idea that sanctuaries where gradual human encroachment and cutting down of trees by indigenous peoples occurs, is the right home for the King of the Jungle.
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