What the video of bikers trapped between two tigers says about man-animal conflict
Imagine if, riding on your bike, you took a blind turn, and came face to face with a tiger. In a few seconds, another one joins in, stationing itself behind your bike. This is precisely what happened in a nerve-wracking video that has recently gone viral, shot somewhere in Maharashtra.
The video has been recorded by a group of people in a car, who were purportedly in the area to watch tigers. The bike, with two riders, descends on the scene suddenly. The bikers though show great presence of mind, by stopping the bike and staying completely still. One of the tigers comes closer, inspects them, and walks off. All the while, the people in the car frantically discuss what to do, but decide to stay still as noise or movement could startle the tigers into attacking.
The video is another example of what experts often state - that big cats do not attack unless provoked, or hungry. In India, the man-animal conflict has been a recurring issue. According to environment ministry data, at least one human died every day over the past three years due to conflict with elephants and tigers.
In Maharashtra, where protected forests are surrounded by villages and big cats use cropland for moving from one reserve to another, 2017 was a bad year for both tigers and humans. In the first five months of 2017, 16 people were killed by tigers in the state. By the end of the year, 21 big cats had died, the highest in a decade for Maharashtra.
A Hindustan Times report quoted Tito Joseph, programme coordinator, Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), as saying: “Deaths due to poaching and body-parts seizures is a major concern, with a large number of cases reported from Maharashtra.”
Another worrying trend was tigers and other animals - deer, elephants, wild boars - being electrocuted by electric fences that farmers lay around their fields, to stop crops from being destroyed by nilgais and wild boars.
Behind this man-animal conflict are shrinking wildlife habitats due to deforestation. As human settlements move closer to forests and trees continue to be felled, tigers are compelled to venture farther out for food. Also, in protected reserves like in Maharashtra, a concentration of too many healthy adult male tigers in an area means that the weaker, old, or injured animals are forced to look for easier prey in human settlements.
However, experts say that most tiger attacks on humans are either accidents or when the animal feels threatened, as proven by facts like the body is left at the site of the attack, and not dragged away to be eaten.
In fact, a set procedure has to be followed before a tiger can be declared a man-eater and orders issued to kill it, as prescribed in the standard operating procedure issued by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2013.
According to a report in The Indian Express, some of the conditions that have to be met are: examining the circumstances and nature of an attack to determine if it was accidental or deliberate, establishing the identities of the big cats involved in deliberate attacks to pinpoint a serial offender, and acting fast to capture or eliminate an animal after it has made two deliberate attacks.
Attacks on humans are harmful for the big cats too, a human killed by one tiger puts all the striped animals in the area in danger of the wrath of scared and angry villagers.
The solution to all this is not simple. According to a report by Dr K Ullas Karanth, senior scientist, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Dr Rajesh Gopal, member secretary of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA): “Wildlife managers are severely handicapped by stringent legal requirements, lack of financial resources and technical skills, as well as social pressures generated locally in conflict situations. A clear policy framework would enable them to avoid ad hoc responses and deal with conflict situations much more logically and effectively.”
In February 2016, the Centre unveiled the National Wildlife Action Plan for 2017-2031, the third such plan after the last one ended in 2016. The plan focuses on mitigating man-animal conflict, adapting to climate change, managing eco-tourism and ensuring public participation in the conservation, and to govern India’s approach to wildlife protection for the next 15 years.
Hopefully, it will usher in "achhe din" for India’s wildlife.
Also read: Why tigers no longer roar in Madhya Pradesh