Human/wildlife conflict, from crocodiles to leopards, and a lot, lot more...

This is Hemant a few weeks ago keeping an eye out for tiger. Currently Hemant and some of his anti-poaching team are patrolling in the Babai region.  This is serious work in monsoon conditions.  I'm bloody proud of these guys.

So picture this: A man is waiting for his daughter to bring through another basket of water for some work he is doing at the front of his house.  He hears screams, yelling.  He runs to his backyard through which runs a canal barely ten metres from the back of his house.  The scene he sees before him is horrifying.  A crocodile has his daughter's leg in its jaws.  His daughter is clinging to some reeds trying not to get dragged under.  Hi other daughter has grabbed the crocodile by the tail.  His wife is sitting astride the crocodile's back.

The man sprints to the scene.  He thrusts both his hands in the crocodile's mouth.  He is doing everything he can to try and release his daughter from the grip of the two metre reptile.

So that's what's happening.  A family is fighting a crocodile in their backyard.

The man succeeds in releasing his daughter.  The croc latches on to the man's arms.  They roll several metres down the canal.  The man's wife is still trying to wrestle the reptile.  She does enough to make the croc pissed off enough to let go.  The daughters are now standing on the bank screaming, bleeding as they watch their parents beat off a crocodile.

The family are all injured, shaken.  They are all alive.

This happened on 27 April, just less than two months ago.  As I stood beside the canal a few weeks later researching their story, studying photographs and trying to picture this event, I am told the crocodile still lives there.  They had seen it twice since.

I wonder how many times it had seen them.

To get more of this story you'll just have to read the "bloody book" but I promise you this story and many other human/wildlife conflicts  I am uncovering will be worth putting up with my ranting.

Tomorrow I head to a scene where a leopard (or maybe more than one) killed fifteen goats in one night.

So picture this one now: A farmer buys a goat for anything from 8000 to 12000 rupees (over $100 anyway).  Leopard (or snow leopard) kills goat.  The farmer waits several months for 500 rupees in compensation.  500 rupees is nothing.

The farmer is angry for losing a hunk of his livelihood.  The farmer is angry with the government because the compensation is a joke.  The farmer is angry with the leopard, he blames the leopard.

Revenge killing?  To protect his livelihood, his family?

Nepal takes up a fair chunk of my life but I don't profess to understand, I don't try.  The facts are there when you search, search hard.  There's hardly anything in the media and what there is can be seriously twisted.

I have to move my legs every day to find out this stuff.  I talk to people in the jungle, the urban jungle, the mountains.  I learn and learn.

And yet it is teaching me how little I really know...

And I haven't even mentioned the word "tiger" in this post...

MONSOON FURY ... My biggest issue is that I've had to operate by candlelight, a complete nothing compared to the problems of many as the power of the rainy season means floods, landslides, electricity outs, big transport issues and tragically, loss of life.

Nepal, such an irony, so much water and yet the lights go out. That's Nepal though, wedged between those billionaires (population wise) China and India, a pawn in so many ways. The big wet affects wildlife too, mega species like elephant and rhino can drown when there's nowhere to go.

For now, as I try to catch up now that the lights are actually back on, I still burn a candle for the recent flood victims, swept away in this land of extremes where the challenge of living day to day is a very raw, real one...

Crouching Kiwi, Hidden Tigress ... the day a wild tiger fooled me, stirred me...

I’ve spent much of the last days head down in my laptop.  “Mr Jack sir, you are always so busy!” says the guy who brings my pots of masala tea.  I haven’t been able to hold down much more than tea thanks to a nasty something playing havoc with my digestive system, if you get my drift.

No problem, just get on with it.  I’ve had stuff to do here in Kathmandu, it’s been interesting.  My mind is still in the jungle though.  My mind got messed with by a tiger, a tigress actually.  I’ve written a lot about it, mainly to myself.  I’ve written, edited, re-edited and then I finally sent it away to a friend, a literary agent.  He got back to me with, “you can’t blog that, they’ll have to buy the bloody book to get that story!”

So sorry, you’ll have to buy the “bloody book” … but hey, the funds will go to tiger conservation.

I will tell you this.  It was an incident I will never forget.  A tiger completely flummoxed me.  I already had great respect for this highly intelligent predator but now I feel something even more.  It’s hard to explain.

The tiger has taken me many places, enabled magical wildlife experiences, incredible moments with tigers but at the same time also led me into a world where the dark underbelly of illegal wildlife trade, corruption, politics, greed and ego (so much ego!) has really made me question many aspects of humanity.

Then there are the moments like the one with the tigress.  Her stillness, her power, her very connection to her habitat made me very small but at the same time filled me with even more motivation, determination.

 It had already been an inspiring week.  One of the anti-poaching team, Dipa, had an encounter, at five metres, a mock charge.  Dipa is a different man now, he says a better one.  I had the privilege of witnessing several people have their first tiger sightings.  The emotions of joy, awe and pure wonder were plain to see, to feel.  I also had some my best sightings ever.  Anyone who has read my rants will know I do not seek this, I am happy with pug marks, with proof of tiger health.  A sighting is a bonus, a blessing.

To say the tigress fooled me that morning is an understatement.  Later in the day, after two more fantastic sightings of a huge male, I had a close encounter with a cub.  Where was the mother?  Was it her that had given me such a moment earlier in the day?  A quick scout round, little pug marks, big pug marks, they were close by.  I gathered our team, made the decision to leave.  This was tiger habitat, time to leave them alone.  The season was ending.  Almost on queue Hemant said this should be our last day in this area, just let perimeter patrols keep watch.  The synchronicity continued later in the day as the monsoon finally gave us the first big rain, such relief after a day of extreme temperatures and humidity.

The tigers of Bardiya would have their own small private water holes now, no need to venture out where humans might spy them.   An epic season of sightings, some say the best ever, had ended.

Join me in this place, you will not regret it.  If it does not change your life I will question if you are really alive.

jk@wildtiger.org

Back here in the urban jungle I reflect.  Information comes digitally and verbally.  An investigative team has found a tiger skin in a remote village.  A high ranking official has bought two parrots from Australia.  My sources are impeccable, totally admirable.  The news they bring is sobering.

So I reflect how I crouched in the jungle, a tigress hid, my sweat laden eyes trying to understand, make sense, her sharp gaze made a mockery of my blur … we had our moment together…

The mountains await now … home of a mountain tiger?

Tigers of the west, giving real hope...

TIGERS OF THE WEST... I'm back in the urban jungle for a few days now, stuff to do. It's a time to get the right fluid levels again after being physically and mentally parched by the torturous heat of west Nepal. It's also time to get some perspective after dreamlike tiger experiences including a close encounter with a cub that took my breath away and also made me ask very seriously "um, where is your mother?" ... before that I was totally tricked by an adult tigress (not the first time I've been confused by that gender but usually by the two legged species).

I'll write about these and other events very soon but for now I'm sitting here quietly reflecting before "Jungle to the Sky" takes me back to the sky and tigers of another style.

The tigers of the west are doing ok, more than ok, considering what our species makes them contend with. This remarkable creature in combination with some remarkable people is turning back the clock, restoring an ecosystem, giving huge hope.

There is much to still be done. It will be done that I know. Dreamlike encounters really add fuel to determined reality...