Dr. A.J.T. Johnsingh is one of India’s foremost conservation biologists. This narration is based on a story that he read in Indian Express, an English daily in the early 1960s. In that story the mother of an eight-month old cub was shot by the hunters (hunting was allowed then) and with enormous difficulty facing many challenges the cub grew up and eventually became a man-eater. Johnsingh changes the story to fit with the present day context of poaching. He narrates the sad story of a young tiger who struggles to survive in a shrinking and degraded habitat and how the poachers and the incursion of humans into his habitat drive him to a fate he never wanted. Story by Dr. A.J.T. Johnsingh

Illustrations: Maya Ramaswamy

The trail, shrouded in morning mist, along which I was walking with my mother, in one of the intact forests in the Himalayan foothills, was heavily littered with animal signs. There were tracks and dung of elephant, sambar, chital, barking deer and wild pig. There were sloth bear, Himalayan black bear and leopard signs too.

Overpowering the smell of all these animals was the odour of my race and there were old and new pugmarks about the size of a small turtle, lumps of droppings, claw-marks at a height of about two meters on the boles of large trees which had soft bark. Many of the bushes overhanging the path also had the strong whiff of my race. It was a clear sign that it was an ideal home for me, a young tiger of 10 months old, to grow as an adult under the protective care of my mother who had inherited this piece of jungle, rich in animals, from her mother. Generations of my mother’s ancestors have lived in this forest defending territory, hunting and raising families.

When I was young I had a brother and a sister; my brother was trampled by an elephant and my sister bitten by a large snake. After their deaths my mother took care of me very affectionately and jealously guarded me from all possible dangers. Once every 4-6 days she would kill some prey, usually a deer or a pig, which gave us enough food and strength to get by.

Today she was keen to kill as the attempts of the night before were not successful. It is surprising that killing a prey, even in a forest rich with animals, was difficult for her, even though she can move through the forest silently like a ghost. On this day she was padding the trail silently, occasionally stopping, listening and looking around to locate a suitable animal to kill. Fortunately there were no monkeys, either langur or the macaque, up in the canopy. Otherwise they would  have warned the prey animals on our trail. I was following her at a distance slowly and silently. All of a sudden my mother stopped abruptly as her left fore-foot was caught in a metal device which had two halves, each with a row of long and sharp powerful teeth, which had buried deeply into her paw.

My mother didn’t scream but jumped here and there and tried to pull her leg away from the clutches of the device but the set of teeth got deeper and deeper into her paw cutting the skin, muscles and blood vessels. Blood started oozing, and soon moaning and groaning in pain she lay on the ground panting and subdued. I went around her, licked her face and the wound and nudged her to get up. Soon we heard the sound of men coming. They were talking in a hushed tone. There were four of them: one had a heavy stick, another had a long spear and the other two had knives. Two of them were also carrying each a gunny bag. My mother made one final attempt to free herself from the device but it seemed even more painful, and she sat on her belly as if resigned to her fate. When the men came closer she gave her last warning growl, a signal for me to run away from that place.

I ran up a nearby densely-wooded hill slope where there was a rocky area some hundred meters from the place where my mother lay trapped. There crouching among the rocks I watched what was happening to my mother. I could not see it clearly but I saw the man beating her on the head with the heavy stick, the man with the spear pierced her throat through the mouth and soon my mother fell silent. The men hurriedly skinned her – and the skin, with the head and the paws, was put in a gunny bag. Then the men swiftly removed the flesh from the body, the dismembered bones were put into another gunny bag and the rest – the stomach, intestine and the flesh – were thrown into the nearby bush. Although the men were at a distance of 100 meters I could clearly see their faces smeared in blood, my mother’s blood, and in sweat. Their faces became etched in my memory. I took a vow just then that when I grew up I would kill all of them one by one when they dare enter the forest again.

As I was only 10 months old I had great difficulty to survive. My mother had given me some early training to stalk smaller prey such as peafowl, fawns and female deer. She had warned me that I should never make a frontal attack of either a deer with branch-like hard antlers or wild boar with long curved sharp tusks. Up until my mother’s death I had not made any kills myself. Now with no mother to protect me, with immense fear and care, I wandered through the forest avoiding animals such as elephants and Himalayan black bear. I also took great care to avoid the large male tiger in the nearby territory who my mother didn’t like very much. I didn’t know much about my father. Possibly he also got killed by people. My mother used to tell me that he was so brave, swift and powerful that no animal in the forest would be able to kill him.

On the third day I was extremely hungry and I thought that any time I may faint. Luckily I came upon a peacock feeding on fallen fruits of an Indian plum tree under a thorn bush. Fortunately the cock was only a few meters away when I saw it. I rushed toward it – it tried to fly but its long tail feathers got entangled in the thorn bush and before it could free itself I grabbed and killed it. Biting and clawing, with difficulty, I removed the feathers and ate the juicy flesh which was still warm and alive. A few days later hunger again moved me to search for food. In one clearing I saw a group of wild pigs feeding. There were many healthy piglets with the group. I rushed at them. The pigs initially ran away but then at a distance clustered together and advanced towards me aggressively.

In the melee one fat piglet fell into a ditch. The group stood around for some time threatening me and then ran away leaving the screaming piglet in the ditch. After the group left the place and when I realized the group posed no danger, I got into the ditch, killed the piglet and carried it into a dense cover and ate it peacefully. Gradually my hunting skills improved – I killed and ate regularly and steadily grew into a large adult male tiger. But often I remembered the faces of the four men – and the thoughts of avenging them gave me more and more strength to hunt regularly and become stronger and stronger.

It was a winter month and most of the sambar stags in my jungle were sporting hard antlers and one among them was huge with magnificent antlers. Often I saw him proudly and gracefully walking through the jungle as if he was the lord of the jungle. Many female sambar had a great liking for him. Often I thought of killing him because if I kill him, I thought, that I need not hunt at least for 10 days. But I was a little wary of his hard antlers as its ivory tips were very sharp and if I bungle in my first rush the antlers can cause serious injury to me which could eventually turn to be fatal. I hunt alone and if I am injured I can’t hunt for several days which will weaken me and I could be challenged by the large male in the nearby territory who has an eye on my rich territory which has several females.

One late afternoon I was basking on the rock slope from where I saw my mother getting skinned. Soon there was a huge commotion in the jungle – village dogs were barking, men were shouting and I saw the sambar stag running through the bushes followed by the dogs, that were trained to hunt, and several men. The stag was running towards a pool in the forest where it could protect itself by standing in the water and hitting the dogs with its powerful forelegs. But for the men, possibly the stag would have saved itself from the dogs. When the men arrived on the scene, the dogs barked viciously, jumped in the water and lunged towards the stag which when closely threatened stood on its hind legs, hitting the water with its forelegs. The dogs stayed back, fearing the branch-like antlers and the powerful hits on the water with the forelegs.

Now the man with the spear advanced closer to the stag and with all his might he threw the spear on to the side of the deer little behind its shoulder blade. The sharp spear went deep into the body of the stag and the spear stood sticking and hanging from the body of the stag. The men gathered large stones and threw at the stag. Some stones missed the stag but many hit him hard on the face, neck and even near the spear.

Slowly the stag sank to the ground and the men screaming and shouting rushed to the stag and holding its tail, antler and the legs with difficulty pulled the stag out of the water. Then they started cutting the stag into pieces, with knives and an axe, wrapped the blood-dripping large pieces of the stag in tall grass cut from the nearby grass patch and carried away their booty. The dogs stayed around for some time licking the blood on the ground and eating fragments of meat scattered around. Then they sauntered after the men.

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Now I am nearing 10 years of age and over the last five years or so I have mated with several females and fathered many cubs. Most of them, particularly my sons, disappeared from my area as they grew up. But in the last few years I have seen worrying changes in my forest. I understand that our home, once continuous for hundreds of miles along the foothills of the great mountain, is now broken into several pieces by the greediness and thoughtlessness of human beings. They did not realize that intact vast forests are beneficial to humans. The humans after all depend on the water, on which every life and civilization is dependent, which arise from these forests.

In fact, the humans depend on the forest more than we do. They degrade the habitat but, in spite of their deliberations, don’t have either the vision or dedication to restore the broken forests. I hear more human voices in the jungle and often I find people camping in the interior parts of the jungle. Occasionally I come across signs indicating that animals, including my own race, have been killed.

Rains have become erratic these days, often there are droughts and more cattle come into the forest to graze, as they don’t have much food around the villages. The cattle people set fire to the forest to get flush of grass for their cattle. I don’t understand why humans and their cattle can’t manage their needs outside the forest where the land available to them is much more than we have in the forest.

On one fateful day I was stalking a wild boar which was feeding at a distance. The wind was blowing from the boar towards me. I use my long whiskers to detect the wind direction. The boar was facing away from me and rooting the ground. I was in an ideal situation to hurry from behind and kill him by biting through his nape. But just as I was about to rush, a man came along the trail where the boar was feeding. Upon seeing him the boar grunted and ran into the forest. I was disappointed. I had a clear look at the man, and the day of my mother’s death immediately flashed back. I realized that he was one among the four who killed my mother.

Years had taken away much of my anger. I had no desire to kill him. But I did have the intention of threatening and frightening him, so I stood on the path and growled. The man, either brave or stupid, took a stone and threw it at my face instead of running away. The stone hit me hard below my right eye and the pain aroused my dormant hatred. In anger I growled and bounded towards him.

It turns out that the man turned out to be a coward – he tried to run. Within just a few strides I caught him by the head and neck, and brought him down. I crushed his skull like an egg shell. It seemed unbelievable that this man was so fragile. He quivered and died in seconds. I never thought that human beings were so weak. I lay down near his body for some time but the smell of the warm blood oozing from his nape attracted me. I smelt the blood and it was pleasant. I licked the blood and tasted the flesh around his neck. It was tasty. I didn’t realize that I was in the process of becoming a man-eater.

I hear rumours that the skin and bones of my mother, and many of my kin, were carried by people beyond the big mountain, at the base of which I grew up, to the countries beyond where people use the skins as dresses and bones for making medicine. I hear there is big money in this business.

Can’t the people beyond the mountains live without our skins and bones? They can easily make dresses out of materials like cloth and wool, and they can certainly get other medicines for their ailments. Only a change of heart – deciding to stop using our skins and bones – would ensure the survival of my friends and relatives in the forests on the southern slopes and the foothills of this great mountain. Without this change, throngs of men will continue to kill my kind – the valiant survivors who still roam the shrinking and degrading forests – and will send the last wild skins and bones across the mighty mountain… which will eventually exterminate my race.

Dr. A.J.T. Johnsingh is one of India’s foremost conservation biologists. This narration is based on a story that he read in Indian Express, an English daily in the early 1960s. In that story the mother of an eight-month old cub was shot by the hunters (hunting was allowed then) and with enormous difficulty facing many challenges the cub grew up and eventually became a man-eater. Johnsingh changes the story to fit with the present day context of poaching. He narrates the sad story of a young tiger who struggles to survive in a shrinking and degraded habitat and how the poachers and the incursion of humans into his habitat drive him to a fate he never wanted.