Saving the Tiger:Tribune article

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Saving the tiger

PM must keep his pledge

 

* Lt Gen (retd) Baljit Singh

BECAUSE it is there”! That was the pithy response of George Mallory during a

fund-raising lecture in Cambridge in 1924 when one in the audience asked: “Why

climb the Everest?”

Elaborating further on the interrogative “why” to our quest for preserving the

Royal Bengal Tiger species in the wilderness in India, let us not forget that

first and foremost the tiger is India’s national animal. And therefore it is one

of the icons of our nationhood.

Now that the Government of India has conceded that we are left with less than

1,200 tigers, the question which begs the answer is: how shall we save the

species from imminent extinction?

Perhaps we can draw strength by recalling experiences from the last century

where certain mammal and bird species were successfully provided a second lease

of life, and draw lessions therefrom to mitigate the current tiger crisis facing

us.

We have the case when in 1903 the eight Asiatic lions in the Gir forest

constituted the only surviving pride of lions in the entire world. It was a

common practice in colonial India for the rulers of the princely states to host

the Viceray over the Christmas week.

So the Nawab of Junagadh conceived the idea of tempting Lord Curzon with what

would virtually be the last hunt in Asia for a lion trophy. Making departure

with protocol, Lord Curzon replied in person to the Nawab. He declined his

gracious invitation, inveigled with him to ban lion hunting altogether and

protect the Gir forests so that the Asiatic lion may survive to perpetuity.

This provides us the finest example where the astute vision of the head of a

Government coupled with an unwavering political will saved a mammal species from

the very jaws of extinction.

Lord Curzon’s successors and the Nawabs of Junagadh kept up that resolve so that

on India’s Independence in 1947 there were about 62 Asiatic lions in the Gir.

Today they number more than 300!

Moving on to 1972 we arrive at the fateful year when the Arabian Oryx was

declared extinct from the wild. And with that we come to the story where

philanthropy of a handful petro-dollar rich princes of the UAE has aided the

reintroduction of this speices.

Starting in the 1980s, in zealously guarded and regularly patrolled selected

areas on the Arabian peninsula, where about 800 captively bred Arabian Oryx were

released in trickle now and then, a new lease of life was provided to this

species.

This is a beginning of what may be the only initiative in the reintroduction of

a species after total extinction. One crucial factor of success was that in

Saudi Arabia alone a mind-boggling 2200 sq miles area for reintroduction was

totally fenced-in which, without philanthropy, is simply unthinkable.

At this stage, it is essential for me to state emphatically that as of now,

unfortunately, there has been very little success with reintroducing hand-reared

or captively bred carnivore to the wild.

George and Joy Adamson, who left India in the 1940s to settle in S. Africa,

tried to release in the wild their hand-reared, orphaned lion cubs.

These animals were either not canny enough or were wanting in physical vitality

to stand up to their free-ranging members. The attempts failed to establish a

precedence.

In India, “Billy” Arjun Singh, now an octogenerian, attempted to hand-rear a

female tiger cub born in and purchased from the London zoo, with the idea of

ultimately releasing it in the Dudhwa tiger reserve.

He fared better than the Adamsons in as much that Harriet did made with a

free-ranging tiger, littered in the wild but brought the week-old cubs back, one

by one to a room in Tiger Haven, Billy’s home on the fringes of Dudhwa!

The story beyond is marred in controversy whether Harriet and her progency

perished through deliberately poisoned baits by the Forest Department or at the

hands of poachers?

A similar attempt by Billy with a leopard cub (Prince) also remained an

inconclusive venture.

Antagonists of the tiger conservation idea will be quick to point out that in

Texas there as nearly 3,000 tigers (Royal Bengal and Sumatran species) living in

captivity inside large enclosures on the ranches of the rich Americans. But this

in no way can be a living gene pool for us to reintroduce them in our wilds for

two basic imponderables.

First, there are no reports yet of their having littered in capivity in Texas.

If they do and by the time we hand-rear them in India, they may meet the same

fate as Harriet’s progeny.

Worse, by then their natural prey base in India’s wilds would have diminished

forcing them to become cattle or man eaters. And the same disadvantage will be

faced even if we were to purchase adults from this lot in Texas and reintroduce

them after the extirpation of the species from its habitat.

We must save en block the last 1,000-odd surviving tigers and their habitat and

create conditions for the numbers to multiply to about 5,000 animals or else

India and the world would lose the tiger species from the wild — for ever.

The only option left with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to simply fall in the

footsteps of Lord Curzon. Let us remind him of his pledge to the nation, not

long ago, that he will not allow another Sariska to befall the tiger. Now he

must stand up and match his words with deeds before it is too late.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20080302/edit.htm#4