The human-animal conflict is unequal given the weapons and other resources which humans command. T1 is perhaps destined to be one of its victims
Time was when, faced with persistent complaints of a human-devouring tiger or tigress on the prowl, authorities in what is now Uttarakhand, particularly its Kumaon region, would seek the help of a gentleman by the name of Edward James Corbett, famous as Jim Corbett. The latter, having identified the animal and made sure that it was a human-eater, would set forth, mostly on foot and armed with his rifle, to find and shoot it. It took him hours and even days and weeks of long walks, sleepless hours on machaans, or just on branches of trees, often at great risk to his life, to do so.
Things are different now. According to a recent report by Vivek Deshpande in the Indian Express, over 200 persons and a sharp shooter have been, with the help of 90 trap cameras, thermal drones, two sniffer dogs — and elephants till recently — and a powered hang glider, scouring, for more than 45 days, 170 square kilometres of Pandharkwada and Kalamb tehsils in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district. The purpose of this massive exercise, conducted in the presence of the State’s Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, AK Mishra, and the Assistant Principal Conservator General of Forests Sunil Limaye, is to find and kill T1, a six-year old tigress who has been proclaimed a human-eater with five kills to her name. The order excludes her two cubs which have been moving around with her.
It is likely that, given this elaborate effort, which should certainly have prioritised tranquilising and removing — and not killing — her, T1 will be exterminated despite the remarkable intelligence and ability to evade humans she has displayed. Some people will celebrate, which will be a horrific shame. Jim Corbett, who knew more about tigers than most people in this planet, was proud of never having killed one for sport or reward. He did not even make a prestige issue of killing one. Slow to label a tiger as a human-eater, he wrote in Man-Eaters of Kumaon, “The tiger is a large hearted gentleman with boundless courage and that when he is exterminated — as exterminated he will be, unless public opinion rallies to his support — India will be the poorer by having lost the finest of her fauna.”
Corbett killed even human-eaters with regret and the reason is clear from his observation in The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, that the crimes of the animal, which he killed, were “not against the laws of nature, but against the laws of man”. It is under the laws of man — and by men — that T1 has been sentenced to death. She has had no say in the process. There could be no question of her appearing before any authority and argue that she was not a human-eater. People have doubtless argued in her defence, as others have bayed for her blood. The harsh fact is that she has been condemned unheard.
Motive and circumstances are important factors considered while determining the quantum of punishment for an offence. Hence one needs to ask here: What made T1 into a human-eater if she had become one? This is because, as Corbett once wrote, “Human beings are not the natural prey of tigers, and it is only when tigers have been incapacitated through wounds or old age that, in order to survive, they are compelled to take to a diet of human flesh.” He found that the Champawat tigress which he had killed, and which had killed 200 people in Nepal and 234 in India, had been shot in the mouth some years earlier, which had destroyed her teeth, making them useless for consuming the flesh of her natural prey. The Chowgrath tigress, which he had also killed, had a number of porcupine quills embedded in her right foreleg, causing, over the years, the muscles to rot and bones cratered with signs of infection, making it easier for her to hunt humans and not her natural prey.
The question as to what could have turned T1 into a human-eater is particularly important given the dimensions the human-animal conflict has achieved thanks to increasing human encroachments into animal habitats for agriculture, establishment and extensions of towns and villages, industry and mining, the construction of arterial roads and railway lines. Cattle-grazing and collection of fire-wood are degrading even protected forests. Denied living space and prey, carnivorous animals like tigers and leopards are moving close to — even inside — human settlements for food. There injuries can occur from stepping on broken glass, dashing against barbed wire, hits by trucks, electrocution and in numerous other ways.
The number of animals moving into or close to human settlements would increase continually as human encroachment into animal habitats grow. Tigers, according to Corbett, are keen to leave humans alone and keep to themselves. Nevertheless, conflict is built into the situation with instances of tigers or other carnivorous wild animals preying on livestock and occasionally killing humans, triggering a clamour for exterminating the alleged culprit. It is an unequal conflict given the weapons and other resources which humans command. And T1 is perhaps destined to be one of its victims.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
