Tigers at Sariska may not be completely safe
At night, the jungle has a character of its own, says ranger Janeshwar Choudhary, as he tucks in his revolver in the holster, preparing for a night patrol at the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan’s Alwar.
“People come here to see tigers. They should come to see the jungle,” he adds, as he and four forest guards board an olive green SUV, its powerful headlights sweeping the forest scrub.
Sariska lost all its tigers to poaching in 2004, earning infamy as one of the worst kept game reserves in the country. Eventually, tigers were relocated in Sariska — a first of its kind experiment in the world — and the reserve now has 14 tigers. Except for one tiger allegedly poisoned by villagers in 2010, Sariska has done well since then but the poaching of smaller animals such as sambar, nilgai, wild boar, birds and fishes hasn’t stopped.
In 2017, Sariska officials registered seven cases of poaching. Similar numbers were reported in the preceding years. Poachers fired at two forest guards in January last year, on a day when chief minister Vasundhara Raje was recounting, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, how her government cracked down on poachers.
The ranger’s vehicle pulls over on the track and the men step out. As the car’s engine dies, the eerie silence of the jungle registers itself, accompanied by the chill and the night’s blackness. “We’ll go on foot from here. No sounds,” he instructs his men. “Voice travels far in the forest. If there’s a poacher anywhere around, he must not hear us,” whispers the ranger as he treads swiftly, identifying pugmarks of various animals on the jungle track.
Active patrolling is the most effective way of curbing poaching activities, asserts Sariska deputy conservator of forests (DCF) Balaji Kari. “We have put radio collars on most tigers and a team of two monitors and follows each tiger round the clock,” he says.
At least 36 infrared cameras will be installed in the reserve and a control room will be established for enhanced monitoring.
“The landscape of this reserve
SARISKA(ALWAR):
makes protection difficult. There are two major roads running through the middle. Plus there are some 26 villages inside the core area, unwilling to relocate despite repeated offers of fat compensations,” says Kari.
The forest has two big temples, apart from several smaller ones, and devotees throng in thousands on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Studies suggest that human disturbance has also affected mating tigers at Sariska. Conservation efforts are also hampered by a shortage of staff. Of the 300 forest guards it ought to have, there are only 110, officials said.
Narendra Singh Rathore, 78), a hunter-turned-conservationist, says the motives of hunting have changed over time. “Earlier, it was done for sport. Outlawed in 1968, it became a business and animals were hunted for their body parts. These days, sambar and wild boar are hunted for meat,” says Rathore.
The body parts of tiger, such as skin, nails, bones, are known to fetch lakhs of rupees in the international market. Poachers in Sariska work through an organised network — local villagers are foot soldiers — and connivance of forest department officials also emerged in cases.
Nishant Singh Sisodia, a 31-year old conservationist, says although organised network has been busted and poaching kingpin Sansar Chand — known to have killed over a 100 tigers — is dead, threat to the big cats can’t be ruled out. “The reason is that the engagement with the villagers has been terribly inadequate. They see the forest and wild animals as their enemies. All they want is firewood for their houses and access to forest land for their cattle to graze. Our efforts for conversation collide head on with their requirements,” he says.
The communities that dominate the villages are Meena, Meo and Bawarias and they are traditional hunters. There have also been cases of man-animal conflict. Leopards of Sariska have killed six villagers over two years and after one incident, enraged villagers burnt a leopard to death.
The hostility is evident among villagers. “Earlier, the cats would never come out or attack us. But these forest people have released new animals in the forest that veer out regularly towards the villages and kill people and cattle,” says Babli Gujar, 29, a resident of Gopalpura village.
Sisodia says that if the villagers are not won over, the threat of hunting can never be eliminated.
Back in the jungle, the men hop back in their vehicle as the patrol nears its end. They stop at a water hole, a guard goes and brings in a trap camera bolted on a wooden pole. “Three leopards in a frame. And look at this, it’s a honey badger,” says the ranger, as he goes through the photographs from the camera on his laptop.
It is such sights that make the efforts of the forest staff worthwhile.