A NEW APPROACH TO BIG CAT CONSERVATION

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*http://www.wildlifeofindia.com/billy2.htm*

*TIGER CONSERVATION- A NEW OUTLOOK*

*by*

Billy Arjan Singh

 

During the many years in which I have served the cause of Wildlife I have

had to face antagonism from the Forest Department because I have maintained

that charge of wildlife has been entrusted to them simply because wildlife

dwells mainly in forested areas. Otherwise the disciplines are antagonistic.

A " clean " floor is the dream of a forester, it is the nightmare of a

wildlifer where the homes of nesting birds, breeding mammals, homing

reptiles, and parasites who seek the shelter of trees are destroyed for

profit. Yet the sport killers of yesteryear are the supposed champions of a

dwindling resource, and I am vilified by the very people whose jobs I am

doing.

 

Though the reintroduction project (of Tara the tigress) had the approval of

the Prime Minister in 1978, I was denied permission by the Department to

radio collar the tigress who I was trying to return to free living, merely

because a new government which looked upon wildlife conservation as a

luxury, had taken over the direction of administration in 1977/78. Two years

and ten months later, on 9th November 1980 the Park Director shot a tigress

which had turned a man killer, and claimed that she was my rehabilitated

tigress which had not been tutored in the art of killing by her mother and

had therefore turned a man-eater . The incongruity of the fact that, he had

refused to permit a radio-collaring, and that the shot tigress he had called

Tara existed for two years and ten months since then, during which time she

was alleged to have killed five humans, and of whom she had only been

allowed to eat very small portions, did not occur to him.

 

The distaste with which the Forest Department reacted to my claim that I had

returned a zoo bred tigress to free living conditions, was compulsive,

possibly triggered by the fact that the confident assertion by the self

proclaimed wildlife pundits of the Department, that it was humanly not

possible to return " super predators " to free living conditions, had been

disproved. The Director of Project Tiger insisted that my claim to have

returned a cub tiger to the wild was " bogus " . He submitted verbose reports

in support of his thesis. Muted promptings by prejudiced personnel to

questions in the Indian Parliament, elicited the information to the enquirer

that Tara had been naturally eliminated. The Park Director persisted with

the fraudulent claim that he had shot Tara, " The Maneater " . Subordinate

staff were encouraged to spread the canard that a hand reared tiger had been

taken from the safety of a zoo only to lose life and liberty in the

misguided performance of impossible experimentation. Biased personnel, who

had never seen Tara refuted the confident claim of someone who had lived

with her for a year and a half.

 

Beguiled by the prejudices of people in authority, the Chairman of the Cat

Group agreed that no tiger had ever been put back into the wild. It was a

travesty that while Tara existed as an occupant of the Tigerhaven Range, and

was frequently seen by tourists with her various cubs, an insidious

propaganda emanating from Park Headquarters did not allow an acceptance of

the erstwhile hand reared tigress return to free living, it was only after

her disappearance from the Range in 1992, and the appearance in 1994 of a

tiger as a possible Siberian Mutant, for mutants can appear in the

subsequent generations, that I thought of a DNA Test to establish whether

the tiger which I suspected to have Siberian antecedents, and as proclaimed

by the international scientists who had opposed the intermingling of sub

races over twenty years ago, was indeed a descendent of Tara, a hybrid whose

integration would contaminate the local Indian subspecies.

 

The context however was now entirely different to that of twenty years ago.

The tiger was in imminent danger of extinction, and though a majority of

scientific opinion still maintained that effective protection was sufficient

to ensure survival in perpetuity, conservationists felt that the " Point of

No Return " had been crossed and a genetic diversity for constricted

populations in fragmented areas to prevent inbreeding was now essential .

Scientific dogma had also been modified of necessity, by the examples of the

invigorating effects of hybridisation among plant life and humans.

 

It was now sought to remedy the physical infirmities of the genetically

afflicted Florida Panther by an integration with the Taxes Cougar, of a

different subspecies in the USA . A report by two scientists from the

Wildlife Institute of India stated that a group of three tigers and eight

tigresses in the Rajaji National Park did not appear to have bred, and

though they, possibly wrongly, attributed this condition to habitat

disturbance, the probability of a genetic failure due to inbreeding should

be investigated.

 

The Chairman of the International Cat Specialist Group however firmly

repeated that there was no record of a captive bred tiger being integrated

into a wild population, and moreover maintained there was no necessity of

adopting options for the diversifications of genes among wild tigers by

translocations, reintroductions or artificial insemination, if protection

was ensured. But he had also upheld the probability of extinction by the

close of the century. As far as my own feelings were concerned, I was of the

opinion that the mutant out of Tara was one of the handsomest tigers I had

ever seen, and the contamination of the blood line was a load of eyewash.

Also the prospect of egg on the faces of bureaucrats in officialdom, who had

used their high offices to denigrate the successful introduction, was an

enchanting one.

 

I realised that the exhausted genes of the local community had been

revitalised , though it was problematical how many of Tara's offspring

survived the onslaught of the bone trade. The Indo Nepal border was an ideal

heaven for the criminal elements of either country. I converted my farm at

tiger heaven to a grain and sugarcane farm to be shared by ungulates, humans

and elephants alike, and attract prey species to secure the presence of

Tara's progeny.

 

I taped a tiger call in 1995, and found that one particular male would

answer these calls at night. Tigers use calls mainly as a means of

communication, whether it be spacing calls chiefly at kills, mating calls,

or contact calls within families . As the taped call was that of a male, it

seemed that the range male was seeking to establish territory, and though

there were two tigresses in the vicinity, he appeared not to associate with

the females, which could indicate that he was a sub adult, though his pugs

were those of a well grown tiger.

 

One day during March some buffaloes were being grazed along the bank of

river in the buffer area of the Park to the east of Tiger Haven. Among them

was a pregnant black cow. A tiger appeared from some tall grass at midday

and killed the cow , and started to drag it across the river. Alarmed by

the yells of the grazers, he abandoned the kill in the shallow river, where

I saw it, as I passed on my way into town. On my return a couple of hours

later, he had returned and tried to drag the carcass across the river but

one leg caught in a sapling, and he was unable to take it up the river bank

under cover. He had a meal and then spent the afternoon sitting in the river

upstream. That night he dragged the kill along the river for about fifty

meters, and the third night he repeated the manoeuvre for another hundred

meters . By this time the corpse was smelling considerably, but a tigress

who happened to pass by, did not pause to investigate, and the tiger pulled

the remains up the bank and finished it on his own.

 

A few days later he was seen sitting in the water at the Croc Pool bend

further upstream , besides what appeared to be the rumen sac of an animal

which we later discovered was that of a large wild boar. I drove along the

river bank in my gypsy playing the roar, and saw the tiger appear to contest

what to him must have been a challenge to the possession of his kill. We

were all surprised, for the pale pelage, the wide stripes, the large head

and white complexion had the characteristics of Siberian stock. Was this a

recessive mutant out of Tara for she supposedly had Siberian genes? If so,

at this advanced stage when the species was faced with extinction, what

lessons, if any, did he hold for the future? And what answer to the furore

that the pure bread of the Indian tiger was being contaminated by foreign

genes? For this was a young tiger, as was evident by the whiteness of his

canines, with the outstanding good looks of his forbears.

 

Many questions had to be answered by the scientist keepers of the stud book.

Was there a case for reappraisal for the eight subspecies of tiger, four of

whom were extinct? The tiger had been in existence for a million years, when

habitat areas were contiguou , and obviously subspecies only came into

existence with a fragmentation of habitat which is comparatively very

recent, and there is still possibly an overlap on the Asian mainland. The

compartmentalisation of subspecies is possibly too dogmatic? It should be

for consideration that generic tiger which are recommended for extinction

should redeem their unfortunate existence by repopulating selected habitat

areas of erstwhile Balinese, Javan and Caspian occupation? For these tigers

are already in process of a genetic transition.

 

However the dogma of purity of lineage continued. I wrote to the Chairman of

the Cat Group suggesting a DNA Test to establish the possibility of a

successful reintroduction but he was not in favour. I then approached the

Chief Wildlife Warden of Uttar Pradesh for permission to immobilise the

tiger in question for a blood sample test for Siberian Genes, but permission

was not granted by the senior Wildlife official in the Ministry of

Environment . I then wrote to Hashim Tyabjee, an old wildlife colleague who

had helped in the original identification of Tara, when she returned to the

wild. Dr. Lalji Singh, a scientist with the centre for Cellular & Molecular

Biology in Hyderabad performed a micro satellite test on a hair sample which

I had obtained after much search in the forest. His verdict stated that

there was a seventy percent certainty that the hairs were from a hybrid of

Indo-Siberian origin but it would be require some hair of another tiger of

local origin to confirm the remaining thirty percent. I also sent a hair

sample to John Aspinall asking for a DNA Test, but unfortunately they were

unable to arrange a test and had to refer the possibility to the USA as the

UK genetic laboratories were only to work off blood samples.

 

My efforts to establish that a hand reared tiger could be returned to free

living conditions remained as a holding battle with the Forest Department

who had originally denied such a possibility, and had maintained the

criminality of hybridisation. But the premises had now changed radically.

Whereas integration with other subraces would have been more insidious, and

defiant of perception considering the Departmental negative attitudes,

Siberian hybridisation was not distinctive in a recessive mutant as to

invite further investigation of the phenomena. The seventy percent

probability verdict by the centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology shifted

the venue of possibility from a majority and loaded assertion in the favour

of the Forest Department to a scientific vindication of fact in mine. It

only remained to remove that thirty percent of doubt by sending another hair

sample to Dr. Lalji Singh. However even this was not easy. The Forest

Department procrastinated over giving me hairs from skins which I had been

instrumental in capturing from poachers, but were in their custody.

 

The " BIG CAT COVER UP " has also now assumed formidable proportions with

the Forest Department endeavoring to demonstrate the success of Project

Tiger and that tiger poaching is a figment. They planned a Jubilee

Celebration in 1993, but were mortified to discover that it was more in the

nature of an Obituary, Ranthambhor, the erstwhile shooting Preserve of the

Rulers of Jaipur which had put the success of the Project on the World map,

plummeted from a figure of 44 to a problematical low of 18. Other less high

profile Project Areas registered equivalent slump , yet the Department

maintained that only one tiger had been poached during that fateful year.

 

A tigress was electrocuted by a wire stretched from an Electric Transformer

on the fringe of the Dudhwa National Park in 1994. Names of the culprits

were supplied to the Field Director, but no action was taken. Orders were

issued by the Steering Committee, Project Tiger calling for reports within a

month after the discovery of a casualty, but no reports were ever made by

the State Governments.

 

The Environmental Investigation Agency, a U.K. based Study Group, after a

year long study expressed the opinion that one tiger a day was being poached

from habitat areas. The British Prime Minister offered a donation of pounds

100,000 for saving the tiger and the House of Commons tabled a Resolution

asking the Indian Prime Minister to safeguard the tiger's chances of

extinction, but the Minister of Environment resented the gratuitous

interference of other nationalities in environmental problems of India.

 

The Forest Department, while resenting non governmental interference in

census operations agreed to individual participation, but in the absence of

a long term involvement in methodology such a partnership served no purpose,

and figures continued to be inflated. It was claimed that two thirds of the

tiger population was outside protected areas which was just not possible

considering habitat degradation, lack of protective staff, Timber Mafia

operations, tiger poaching and other adverse pressures and influences, and

if Forest Department claims continue to be accepted, an unheralded

population crash is more than likely, as reports by unconnected, yet

concerned personnel indicate that such unprotected areas have few, if any,

tigers left.

 

A further disappointing development was the disappearance of the hybrid

tiger of Siberian antecedents from the Tiger Haven Range. After his initial

sojourn during which he killed the pregnant black cow and a large wild boar,

to my knowledge he moved east to the vicinity of village Basantapur. By the

winter of 1997 he no longer visited his former range and his great pugs were

seen no more. He was now a resident adjacent to a densely populated and

cultivated periphery of the Reserve, where domestic stock intruded into the

forest boundary. Much antagonism was generated against tiger predation on

cattle, and though compensation was officially permissible it was limited by

a tardy and involved system of payment, and also by the fact that if the

tiger killed an animal where they were not permitted to graze, no

compensation was allowable in all fairness. Moreover pesticides were used to

poison kills, and in conjunction with the soaring prices of skins, bones and

all derivatives, the marketing of Wildlife products continued as a lucrative

business.

 

I therefore on the premise of first things first, and not being restricted

by Departmental protocol, started paying compensation to grazers regardless

of the circumstances of killing. I encouraged the herdsmen to keep me

informed of casualties, and was gratified by an informer reporting to me in

confidence that two tigers had been poisoned and skinned in a village,

Belakalan in early January 1997. Investigations elicited the names of the

culprits, but with my supplying this information to the Forest Department

further revelations dried. A month later some high grass was burnt in the

Rhino enclosure, and the cadaver of a tiger with some attached skin was

found. An autopsy was not possible and the bones were all intact and there

was no attached flesh or viscera, yet the Park Authority issued a communiqué

to say that a sub adult has been killed in a sexually inspired contest. This

was an impossible statement with which I could not agree as there was no

ostensible injury and when a grown tiger kills sub adult, the skull is

invariably fractured. Also, conjectural statements should be objective.

 

A tigress and two cubs of the previous year had disappeared, and it is my

suspicion that they were all poisoned and one of the sub adults died in the

grass, and was not found immediately. Thus the Big Cat Cover Up continues,

and it is my hope that immediate payment of compensation may keep the

Siberian mutant alive, for I hope some of Tara's nine progeny still survive

to invigorate the tiger population. The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve has a

favourable tiger population of more tigresses than tigers and cubs, for

inbreeding also manifests itself in lack of fecundity, and it needs to be

investigated why the Rajai National Park is short of tiger cubs.

 

A favourable development is world concern to halt the tiger's advance

towards extinction. The tiger is a competitor, and in a democratic set up,

there is no place for him in an expanding economy. Developed countries with

no predators and mesmerised by its sheer magnificence say " Save the Tiger,

but save him in your country. " Under their influence, and the surmise that

wildlife cannot exist without the consent of peripheral inhabitants, but

persuasion of the public is a long term prospect, and saving the tiger is*NOW

*.

 

Meanwhile the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology have confirmed

Tara's Siberian antecedents. My efforts to safeguard the erstwhile glamour

Tiger of the Tiger Haven Range continue in his new abode. But the thinking

with regard to animals must change. The Doctrine of Anthropomorphis is an

evil one which has separated humanity and bestiality.