Offering animals a little more sanctuary near Ranthambore
Aditya Singh (below)
was an officer in the union ministry of communications; his wife was a sculptor and fashion designer. They had a busy life in Delhi. But what they really loved was the wild, and it was always calling to them. They travelled, went on jungle safaris, took up photography, but it wasn’t enough.
In 1998, they finally succumbed to the call, quit their lives in Delhi and moved to Sawai Madhopur, the town closto est the Ranthambore tiger reserve (RTR) in Rajasthan. There they acquired and ran a six-room tourist lodge. As they settled into their new lives, says Aditya, 55, they began to hear of a rising number of cases of man-animal conflict. Farmers were selling land near the reserve so they could move further from it to escape that conflict (mainly with the burgeoning populations of wild boar).
The Singhs began to think about buying some of this land, just so they could let it rewild. Both tiger lovers, the idea that they might someday see a big cat stalk through something they had helped return to nature thrilled them. In 1999, they bought their first 4 acres, abutting the forest. They built small earthen
Singh (bottom) Poonam
check dams in natural depressions and, in the monsoon, these would turn into watering holes and attract animals from the reserve.
The couple began saving up for more land and slowly their little project grew. They now have 35 acres in Bhadlav, abutting the RTR. And camera traps set up by the conservation NGO Tiger Watch have recorded tigers, leopards, jungle cats, mongoose, porcupine, spotted deer and numerous other creatures not just walking through it but staying, resting, hunting.
“The tigers rest on this land,” says Tiger
Watch field director Dharmendra Khandel. “Usually, they only leave the reserve at night. They kill some prey, feed and move back into the jungle. But on [Singh’s] land, they stay for four, five days. That is an indicator that they feel safe enough to relax there.” It’s their dream come true, says Poonam, 52.
Since 2004, the Singhs have been acquiring land for a similar effort just outside the Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand. They now have 20 acres there. “We have tried to make both plots as forested as the national park,” says Aditya.
“In Corbett, things rewild much faster. In Bhadlav, there is an extended dry season and the dominant tree species is a slowgrowing one, so we have to give it more time. We have to keep at it, uprooting the invasives, planting the natives, and holding out against any resort that wants to set up here,” Aditya adds. “We’re never going to sell to them. Our daughter, she’s nine now, she’ll inherit it.”