Day Fourteen

The main reason for going to Rathambore is the national park. It had been the exclusive hunting grounds of the Maharaja, but in the nineteen fifties the government declared it a protected area. In the eighties it became an official wildlife sanctuary and all human use was banned. The focus of the park is the tigers. With only six thousand left worldwide, (half of them in India) the forty odd tigers roaming the three hundred square kilometers don’t represent a lion’s share or anything, but I guess it’s significant density. Or maybe not all the sanctuaries allow sightseeing tours? I’m not sure, but I got booked here to see some tigers, so that’s what I’m trying to do. I had a morning safari (6:30am – 10:30am) and an afternoon safari (2:30pm – 5:30pm). Not to kill the suspense or anything, but I saw, on average, zero tigers per hour. I began the day not concerned at all about spotting one. The park is beautiful and there’s tons of wildlife around. Here’s a list of what I saw:
Spotted Deer
Sambar Deer
Gazelle
Antelope
Wild Boar
Hanuman Monkey
Peacock
Spotted Owl
Kingfisher
Eagle
Vulture

Many of these spottings included eensy babies. So yeah, it was a good time. But by the end of the second safari, I was deflated over not seeing a tiger. It’s built up by the guides so much, yet seems to happen so rarely. A couple in my group was on their fourth and final trip and had yet to see one. They left heartbroken. I don’t see any lessons here, other than the obvious one for increased conservation. India’s doing it’s part. They spend about $8m USD a year and have almost doubled the tiger population since 2000. But it’s not easy. They are beset on all sides by hunters and poachers. These locals who know the land well are funded by the manically selfish who are so blinded by their own greed they’d burn down our future to light their egos for a single moment.

Battling these forces does not always have the desired effect. We were cold on the trail of a pair of young tigers who had been spotted a few days earlier. Our guide told us how they lost their mother at the tender age of twelve months. Park rangers had come across the slain body of a cheetah, abandoned in the jungle. They took the body for autopsy and after determining it had been killed by a tiger, brought the corpse into town and burned it. This is important. The corpse must be burned, and it must be seen being burned by as many people as possible. Any shadow of doubt cast on the park suggesting animals are being sold to collectors would obliterate their efforts at quashing the market. They’re fighting tooth and claw to show their people that the tigers are an invaluable resource, even though the sale of a single pelt would change a hunter’s life forever. Imagine trying to convince every person who owns a diamond to bury it back where it came from and walk away. Now imagine those people are starving. It’s a tough fight.

But back to the tigers. Burning the cheetah seemed like the right thing to do. But when the tiger came back and found his kill missing, he figured the nearby tigress had something to do with it. I like how my guide put it: “Currently, she is dead.” With their mother gone, the brothers lost out on some important training in tigering. A year later, they’re timid and poor hunters. We saw a few tracks, but nothing else.

I’ve got one more safari tomorrow morning and then it’s on to Jaipur. I hope I’ll keep my spirits up if the tigers remain in hiding. I was pretty bummed earlier today, but a private yoga session, a fantastic dinner, and a lava rock massage set me straight. No cat is going to turn me into an Ahab.