Bengal tigers in Bandhavgarh National Park - Getty
India's Tiger Success Story
By Harriet O'Brien
Alarm calls from monkeys grew increasingly shrill, the shrieks of peacocks ever louder. The jungle was on red alert. Such animal warnings about predators are just what you want to hear if you’re searching for a big cat in India: in this Dr um roll of agitation, our 4x4 rounded a corner and came to an abrupt halt. In front of us, a tiger had stepped out of the undergrowth.
In the golden glow of late afternoon, the spectacular feline padded across the track and sat down on the sun-warmed red sand. She (my guide quickly identified the tiger as a two-year-old female) did not so much as glance in our direction, or at another safari vehicle nearby, yet she had evidently chosen to hold silent court with us all. There was hypnotic majesty in the way she reclined, minutely flicking her tail, her ears taking in the forest sounds.
I was at Bandhavgarh National Park, in India’s central state of Madhya Pradesh; about the size of Italy, it offers some of the best tiger-watching opportunities on the subcontinent. I’d come not only in hope of seeing a tiger, among other wildlife, but also to catch the mood: 50 years ago, India’s major conservation program, Project Tiger, was set in motion.
A giant male tiger at Panna National Park - Alamy
Back in 1964, the naturalist E P Gee estimated that in the early 20th century there were 40,000 Bengal tigers in the wild in India, but that due to hunting and habitat destruction, the number had dwindled to 4,000.
Two years later, Indira Gandhi became the country’s third prime minister. The famously steely politician cared deeply about nature, and in 1972 she spearheaded India’s Wildlife Protection Act and also appointed a “task force” for tiger conservation.
Its members included naturalist Kailash Sankhala, conservationist Dr M K Ranjitsinh and champion of Indian wildlife Anne Wright, who with her husband had stayed on after independence from Britain and was a founder trustee of WWF India, launched in 1969. Their first act was to draw up an estimate of tiger numbers, dismally concluding that 1,827 of the big cats remained in the wild in India.
The tiger task force launched Project Tiger on April 1, 1973. Its remit ran from mapping habitats to research on how to save the tiger from extinction, and nine areas were designated as tiger parks. Fast-forward 50 years and there are now 53 such reserves across India. In 2018, an official census estimated their combined tiger population at 2,967. New figures are due to be released by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, on April 9 and word on the bush telegraph is that the count could be as high as 4,000.
So, the outlook is positive. But Project Tiger has been far from plain sailing. It got off to a good start in reversing the decline of the big cat, but then faltered in the 1980s and 1990s when poaching escalated to devastating effect.
Although by 2007 the major players had been arrested, smaller- scale poaching continues: according to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, founded and run by renowned conservationist Belinda Wright, Anne Wright’s daughter, 39 tigers in India were lost to poaching or capture for criminal trade in 2022. Meanwhile, dotted across the fringe zones of the country’s protected forest and jungle areas are 170,000 villages, and encounters between tigers and the local human population continue to cause tragic problems.
The Wildlife Protection Society of India was founded and run by renowned conservationist Belinda Wright – Alamy
For the tourists who want to find them, though, tigers are notoriously elusive – on three previous forays in India, I’d failed to see so much as a whisker. To maximize my chances, I travelled to three of the six tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh, beginning at Panna National Park. This jewel box of a conservation area has a troubled past. By 2009, the once-thriving tiger population here had been wiped out due to poaching and poor management – despite many warnings from conservation biologist Dr Raghu Chundawat, who had been conducting a pioneering survey of Panna’s tigers.
Yet Panna has subsequently become a success story. Several tigers from other parks were transferred to this reserve and monitored (one male tried to return to its former territory, trailed by a team of 70 who brought him back), and today the area is home to about 45 tigers. Like all India’s tiger parks, it comprises a buffer zone and a core, of which just 20 per cent is open to the public at strictly controlled times.
I stayed on the park’s periphery, at the Sarai at Toria, an eco-lodge serenely set above the Ken River. Created and run by Chundawat and his wife, wildlife documentary filmmaker Joanna Van Gruisen, it offers accommodation in eight mud-built cottages that combine sustainability and creature comforts. And it’s a privilege to be hosted by such wildlife experts. I saw no tigers in Panna, but on a safari trip with Raghu, we gloried in a host of other creatures, from a lounging leopard to fabulous birds, such as serpent eagles and a well-camouflaged nightjar.
Roads in Madhya Pradesh are remarkably good, and it was smooth going to reach Bandhavgarh National Park further south, where I checked into the Taj Mahua Kothi. A blend of sophisticated hotel and rustic retreat, it has a stylish central lodge and 12 suites strikingly presented as village huts. More importantly, it prides itself on extensive training for its wildlife guides. Hart, who toured the park with me twice, had eagle eyes; quite apart from the majestic big cat we found on our first excursion, he later picked out a male tiger sleeping in the undergrowth, its stripes melding with the dappled sunlight.
Continuing to Kanha National Park, I called in at a luxury tented camp in the making. With plunge pools and river views, Hidden India Mahavan is being developed by hotelier and conservationist Latika Nath. Over lunch, the conversation quickly segued to tigers, one of Nath’s main concerns being human-animal conflict. She pointed out that back in the 1970s, India’s population was about 600 million; today, it is more than 1.4 billion. How do you accommodate growing numbers of tigers beside this rise in human lives?
Sunset over the Ken River at the Panna National Park, Madhya Pradesh – alamy
I proceeded to Kipling Camp, on the other side of Kanha. Opened in 1982, this retreat was the first private wildlife camp in India. It was beautifully devised by Anne Wright and her family and is now run by Belinda Wright, alongside her conservation work. It exudes old-school charm, with 15 bedrooms in cottages set around an open-sided lodge, where guests dine around a central table. Smiling, efficient staff and a resident elephant, 70-year-old Tara, add to the delights of a stay here.
Kanha was a joy to explore, complete with a grassland area where rare southern swamp deer thrive, having been brought back from the brink of extinction. With a core area covering 580 square miles, it is the second largest reserve (after Satpura) in Madhya Pradesh: I took in part of the west of the park from Kipling Camp and a southern stretch from my last port of call, Kanha Jungle Lodge.
This forest retreat of 18 neatly devised rooms set around a thatched hub was established by Project Tiger’s Kailash Sankhala in 1988. Today, his grandson Tarun Bhati is host and manager, along with his wife, Dimple. On my safari with them both, the jungle birds put on a great show: grey hornbills and flamboyant pink and bright blue Indian rollers in particular. No obliging tigers emerged, but we stopped to admire enormous gaur bison – which are quite capable of seeing off a tiger, Dimple told me.
At the end of my trip, I marveled again at the ecosystem on a Zoom call with Project Tiger co-founder Dr Ranjitsinh in Delhi. He talked of his experiences of setting up the program back in the 1970s and how the original concept was to protect the tiger’s environment quite as much as the animal itself. Does he think the tiger’s future is secure? “Yes,” he told me. “That’s because the people of India are now on board and have adopted the tiger; it’s become an icon of the country and the people will not let it go.” – The Telegraph
