Living with Tigers by Valmik Thapar

Author:Valmik Thapar [Thapar, Valmik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mobilism
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
Published: 2016-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

LAXMI—AN EXCEPTIONAL MOTHER

BY 1986 RANTHAMBHORE WAS THROBBING WITH TIGER activity. Looking back this was one of my finest years with wild tigers. On one memorable occasion I saw sixteen different tigers in a day, including three different families, three resident male tigers and two tigresses. It was like living in a different era. I remember once finding three tigresses at each end of Rajbagh Lake. Fateh was delighted. He had dreamt of such a moment and this dream had come true. A large percentage of the world’s tiger visuals and behaviourial records originated from Ranthambhore at this time.

Our greatest desire was to see a tigress with tiny cubs aged between one and four months. We wanted to observe the bonding between mother and cubs. We had seen Noon’s cubs at five months but the earlier period was altogether invisible. Laxmi would grant us a peek into this stage of a tiger’s life. In the early 1980s she had moved to a corner of her mother Padmini’s range between Lakarda and Bakaula, encompassing the valley of Semli. Our sightings of her were infrequent and in the first part of the 1980s she was evasive and elusive. I believe this was her basic nature as she had grown up in an environment that was heavily disturbed by humans. In 1986 she was nearly ten years old.

Early one morning in March 1986 we were driving through the Semli Valley. Laxmi had already parted with her first litter of two and was very difficult to see. I could only get flashing glimpses of her while she crossed roads or moved from one patch of forest to another. That day, as I turned a bend in the road, there facing me at the edge of the track was Laxmi. She sat very still, looking at me. At first I did not see what was around her. Suddenly I realized that three tiny cubs were peeping around a bush. I froze. Soon she relaxed and all three cubs came out to cuddle her. She licked them vigorously. The cubs looked about two months old. It seemed that this was their first encounter with a jeep. As she licked her cubs I realized that another aspect of the tiger’s secret life was unfolding before my very eyes. The cubs slowly found her teats and she lay back to suckle them. This was for me a first. Their tiny feet pushed away at her belly stimulating the flow of milk, as they suckled furiously. Then after ten minutes they jumped around her head and stalked a butterfly in the grass. One of them jumped on her back and another pulled at her tail while she licked the third cub. I watched this family drama for a half hour. Tears rolled down my cheeks as a tangle of emotions exploded within. I had seen all manner of tiger behaviour in the course of my life with wild tigers. I had seen the kills. I had seen how they ate. I had seen the aggression, the power and the fierceness.

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