Let’s try and understand what a man-eater is. Big cats are shy by nature and avoid human interaction as much as they can. So we are not a part of their menu.
Maybe a lot of readers do not know that our ability to stand upright helps us a lot. To other animals, our stance looks very aggressive. That’s why they always try and keep away from humans.
So, if healthy Tigers kill humans, they do not become man-eaters straight away. It means that humans have also become a part of their menu, their food habit. So, unless wounded, in which case men, women and children become easy kills because of their lack of speed, strength and size, there are technically no complete man-eaters.
There are only easy or difficult preys for the cats. There used to be a lot many man-eaters in olden days, mainly because a whole lot of novice hunters would just shoot and injure the cat and then not have the patience to track it and finish it off. After the wound healed, the cat would live, but with a disability, which proved to be a hindrance while hunting.
So if one thinks rationally, then most of the renowned man-eaters of our country owed their popularity, in most cases, to some screw head who thought he or she was good enough to kill a big cat. “HAAN MAIN TEZAAB HUN JUDGE SAHAB…MAIN TEZAAB HUN. PAR MUJHE TEZAAB BANAYA KISNE?”. Obviously, those idiots. They were the ones responsible for all those deaths and killings and they should have been tried for murder. When hunting got banned in our country, the number of man-eaters came down to almost a zilch. Do we see a connection there?
There is an interesting story of a female tigress, which left the confines of Corbett National Park and was spotted in Moradabad. When the Corbett authorities were informed about it, they understandably laughed it off. After all, Moradabad was far away. It was only when a forest ranger called to inform them that the tigress was actually present in the area and he had seen the tigress himself, did the authorities rush a team to look into the matter.
The tigress had found home in the sugarcane plantations. It was a perfect hideout for a cat, which is a loner by nature. It had killed 6 -7 odd people by then. When harvesting started and it started losing cover, the cat had to move. So the Tigress started moving back towards Corbett. The officers of Corbett had instructed the team to only monitor the cat and not harm it in anyway. The big cat came all the way back to Corbett, through connected forest area and eloped. No more human killings. It travelled more than 200 kms through its round trip. That is how much tigers and tigresses move at times in order to gain territory. No other big cat clocks in such distances.
I know I am not going to write anything, which will turn out to be an eye opener. But I started this piece so that I could understand the whole situation better. The controversies surrounding Avni’s death are a plenty. I’ve been reading different takes and points of view of politicians and activists on the incident and have tried to reach a logical conclusion of my own.
But first, lets give the credit where its due. The fact that we still have around 2500 odd Tigers left in the wild is a tribute to all the wildlife conservationists and villagers who live in areas in and around the forest. I completely understand that to kill a rogue animal at times becomes a social exigency. As many conservationists have pointed out in recent days, the whole Tiger project has depended very heavily on the support of the locals, and the forest department can’t afford to lose them to the other side of the fence.
You can’t have a man-eater continue its killing spree because of it national status. Though we hardly ever cared about its status. If we did, there would be a lot many of them alive today. But with the forest cover receding alarmingly, the clashes between man and beast are only going to increase. The remaining forest cover in India cannot accommodate more than 4000 Tigers in all. So if we want them living, it can only happen, I reiterate, with the help of the locals who live around those forest areas.
So understanding their fears and problems is of utmost importance. But was killing Avni still the only option? The men, who were put on the job to capture her, have called it a failed operation because they could not save the Tigress. That they had to kill her in self-defence is a question, which will be debated for a long time. As an after thought, why were private hunters assigned for the job? I am not questioning their credentials.
They might be good hunters with loads of experience. But, a project, which started in 1972, and has seen crores flow into it, does not have its own professionals to tackle these situations? The team, which eliminated T1 was in an open jeep at 11 at night, trying to locate a big cat who, they knew had turned rogue. That they flouted the rule, that an animal can’t be tranquilized at night is only one part of the story. Mostly, night patrols are done in a covered vehicle for personal safety.
A gunshot to the body was not the only option. Had the hunter fired a shot in the air, the cat would have stopped the charge or changed its course. I would not believe that Avni was so used to gunshots being fired at her that she was not scared of them either. Of course they had to kill her in self-defence.
I am pushed to believe that their motive was clear. They did not want the cat alive. The fact that this Tigress was being traced for the last two years and that she managed to elude her captors for so long does not really go down my throat either. I feel that NO Tiger can stay hidden for that long if the authorities and the forest department completely dedicate themselves to the task of capturing it. But even if it did, I think things could have been done differently to safeguard the villagers and the Tigress, who has left behind two vulnerable cubs. It is the kids who have made the situation more complicated.
So, if they are not found in time, in effect, the hunters might end up killing 3 Tigers instead of one. Plus, is there a guarantee that no other Tiger will ever come there and turn on humans? If no, then how many of these endangered cats are we going to kill? I know that wildlife dilettantes like me can be easily shut up. Give us a few technical jargons and throw some laws at us and we would not have an answer. But here, it is pure common sense, which is being presented.
Coming back to Avni’s case, I feel the authorities delayed the process. My point is that 2 years back when she made her first human kill, she must have been alone, without cubs. Her human interaction should have been curtailed then. Her capture should have been taken more seriously. I feel she was allowed to remain in those surroundings for far too long. Had she been captured and relocated then, the problem would not have snowballed. And once she had cubs, she was understandably not going to move much.
Any mother will stay at a place where food is found in abundance. As I understand, Avni was a healthy Tigress who killed humans only if the opportunity presented itself. Come to think of it, ‘Sharmilee’, the Tigress who is known as “The Legend of Corbett”, raised her four kids to adulthood.
This was unprecedented. Her kids remained with her till they were almost three years old, which is a rarity. We have been witness to the fact that at times she made as many as three kills in a day to feed her kids.
So going by that rate, in order to feed her two growing kids, Avni would have had to make at least one kill every day, or every second day, to keep the kids and herself alive. But she was not killing as many humans. Was she?
Somewhere I feel that Avni’s fate was pre decided and the political authorities somewhere had the confidence that all the agitations that have ensued after her murder would walk into cold boxes or die a slow natural death. Though, whether we let that happen or not is completely in our hands. Her kids are secondary man-eaters right now. Tiger Cubs do not start hunting till the age of two generally. So to say that they have already turned into man-eaters would not be accurate. They might kill a few small animals but killing humans does not look probable at the moment.
So to find them and raise them should be our primary concern. A very keen eye will have to be kept on them. They can be rehabilitated into the wild with some work. It has been done before, it can be done again. With the Tiger population already dwindling, we should try and save them at least. Considering the high mortality rate of Tiger cubs, they are still at a very vulnerable age.
So what do we do now? The confidence that I am left with on our judicial system compels me to say, “Let bygones be bygones”. I am a realist and hence I know that justice in India at times is so feeble that the perpetrators of this crime might never ever be taken to task. Even if Avni finds justice in afterlife, what will we do about the killing of the Tigress in U.P.?
A 100 people have been booked for killing it. A tractor was run over it and once the cat was dead, people were busy collecting the spoils of their heroics. They started pulling teeth and nails out of its body. Let me take you through some brutalities we humans are capable of. A man-eater leopard in Uttarakhand was caught and put in a cage. In a few hours people from far-flung areas came to see the killer cat. The public outrage was such that people threw kerosene on the cat and burnt it alive in the cage. I hope death came quickly to Avni.
Well…the man who shot her says that she did die peacefully. I’ll take his word for it. They say that “they do not do this for money or publicity and that they invested their time and energy in helping mankind”… Sir you have ‘helped’ enough! Even if Nawab Sahib made this statement in sheer frustration and against the barrage of allegations he has had to face, I think it was completely misplaced. I would assume that mankind was too thrilled at the prospect of hunting a Tiger down.
Humans are considered to be the most intelligent of all animals but we seldom put that skill on display. Our desire for immediate gains makes us blind towards losses of future. We do not always use our superior mental capabilities to protect or conserve.
Conservationists and activists are often seen as evolved snobs or pseudo intellectuals. We have made ourselves believe that this earth belongs to us and us alone. No other living being has any right over it. Albert Einstein had once said that if a being as small, and in most cases, as irritating as a housefly went extinct, the whole world will come to an end in 3 years.
Every animal or a living being has a role to play in this world. Our carelessness can cost the coming generations a lot. We as humans only try and leave our kids with as much money and property as we can. Such is the materialistic mindset of people today. Not once do we think about leaving a better world and an environment for them to live in.
So move on. Think of saving the cubs.
Personally, I do not ever tell my son stories where the big cats or big animals are portrayed as villains. I have never taken him to a zoo to show him what a Tiger or a Lion looks like. If he has to see them, he has to see them in the wild, where they belong, in all their splendour. I just hope and pray that he does not have to show pictures clicked by his father, to his son, and tell him that son…this is what our national animal, THE TIGER looked like.
(Varun Badola is a TV actor and a writer. He is also into wild life conservation)