A real sharks fan
I have just read Mark Carwardine’s brilliant piece on sharks and people’s innate fear of them (My way of thinking, November 2020) and I want to applaud him, as ever.
I watched Jaws as a child and had a very vivid imagination, so that night my dark-blue carpet became the sea and sharks were just waiting for me to step out of bed to eat me. After a few months of this, I decided to learn a bit about sharks and have been hooked ever since! As a teenager, I even painted a shark’s maw around my headboard – which I would love to do again, though my husband is less keen!
The book, and film, tell a story – there is artistic licence applied but there are some factual elements included and the film uses some live footage shot by Rodney Fox (a great hero of mine) and Ron and Valerie Taylor. However, it is a shame that, even after all this time, Jaws is held up as the truth about sharks instead of myriad research papers, documentaries and books on the subject.
There are over 400 species of shark and more than 100 of those are endangered. Very few are known to have ever attacked people. So, I fully support Mark’s comment about feeling “passionately that we should respect and care for them – as we should for all wildlife – dangerous or not”.
Elaine Tinsdale, Kent
The main problem is that there is not enough information on websites where teenagers actively browse. Most of the wildlife websites that I go on, and a lot of the natural history books that I buy, were recommended to me by BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Admittedly I’m an exception to the normal rule – I cannot recognise Pokémon characters with any degree of fluency compared to animals – but I have not had any information on nature from school.
Tobias M, via email
t was day one of the third Satpura Bird Survey at Satpura Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India. Along with a colleague, I had been assigned to an area deep in the jungle, but I wasn’t expecting a feline encounter. Instead, I busied myself with the varied and colourful birdlife, enjoying sightings of species such as the changeable hawk eagle, Jerdon’s leafbird and Indian grey hornbill.
However, about 20 minutes into the survey, a spine-chilling roar stopped me in my tracks. There was a tiger, and it had to be less than a kilometre away, in the direction of a nearby ravine. We drove towards the sound, to see if we could catch a glimpse of the cat, but after 30 minutes of fruitless searching, we turned our attention back to the birds.
The next morning, we were out on survey once again and I asked my driver to take us back to the ravine. No sooner had we parked up than the peace was shattered by the piercing alarm calls of hanuman langurs.
There, ascending a steep slope on the opposite side of the ravine, was a male tiger in his prime. Surprise turned to astonishment when we realised that he was not alone, but accompanied by a female, wearing a radio collar. They eyeballed us cautiously before
ISTIndia’s Satpura Tiger Reserve is home to some elusive felines.
melting into the bush – the range of these tigers is offlimits to tourists, and they are not accustomed to visitors.
Our driver was confident that he knew where the pair would emerge, and we hotfooted it there. He was right: just five minutes later, the male appeared and sat on a rock, like a king on his throne. He observed us for a good 15 minutes, looking repeatedly over his shoulder, as if willing his mate to join him. When she finally appeared, we were amazed to observe what appeared to be a powerful bond. We watched them, spellbound, for an hour.
As it turned out, the female had been introduced into the reserve in July 2019. Her radio collar had stopped working, and she had somehow evaded the camera-traps. Forest officers had lost track of her, and had spent three months wondering where, in 2,700km² of dense jungle, she could possibly be. They were delighted to know she had been sighted – and to learn that she is now half of a breeding pair. I went to Satpura to find birds, I never thought I’d find a lost tiger.
A chilling roar stopped me in my tracks. It was a tiger, and it had to be nearby.
is a wildlife enthusiast, birdwatcher and eBird editor for the state of Chhattisgarh, India.