Tiger : Lord of the Jungle

Grace, power and stealth together in perfect proportion to create the Tiger. India’s national animal. Feared, respected and worshipped, this masterpiece of nature has now been reduced to pitiful numbers as rampant poaching and loss of natural habitat has played havoc. Our survival depends on the survival of the Tiger.

While travelling through tiger country with the intention of spotting a wild tiger, you will often hear locals claim that you will only see the tiger if he wants to be seen; evidence of the awe that this creature inspires.

How has this reputation come about ?

Even though it is the largest of Asian felids, the tiger can move through the jungle without making a sound. His unpredictable and secretive nature endows him with the ability and habit of appearing out of nowhere and vanishing into thin air, eluding watchful eyes. They call him “ghost of jungle” and fear his almost supernatural ways. Nevertheless, everyone knows he is made up of real flesh, muscle and blood, combining grace, beauty and strength – attributes that have made him natures masterpiece.

The basic colour of his fur is reddish orange to ochre, fading as it moves down from the back and flank. Throat, belly, inner limbs are white. The solid black stripes take shape as bands on the tail. Interestingly, the stripe pattern is unique to each tiger. Scientits use this as a way of identifying each tiger.

A male can reach up to 3-4-5 meters in length and weight up to 260kg. He stands taller at the shoulders than the rear. Heavily muscled and supremely powerfull, the creature can subdue and kill large prey because of a combination of stealth, agility and strength.

Despite the mass of bone and muscle, the tiger cannot run fast for long distances, but can cover 9 meters in a single leap. Equally comfortable on land and in water, the adult of the species rarely climbs trees. However; light-bodied and more motivated tigers are known to clim trees. A man eating tiger outside a national park climbed almost 25 feet and pulled down a man in full view of about forty people who later gathered courage and retrieved the corpse. The tiger, upset about losing his kill, followed the mob to their small village and kept growling and circling the small house where body was kept for the whole night. This also shows how bold the creature can get although they are known to be extremely secretive.

The natural habitat of the tiger was often shared by humans and even though in many places the creature has been wiped out it still holds a special place in the history and mythology of communities. The Hindu goddess Durga, for example, chose the tigers as her vehicle. They very sight of her astride such a fearsome beast is said to have terrified the demons and given the animal the status of their destroyer by Hindus.

As the beginning of the last century there were an estimated 100 000 tigers in the wild, today there are less than 4000 that survive in isolated pockets in their present geographical range worldwide. Till about a century ago, tigers as far west in Asia as Turkey and Thailand, even Korea in the east. Around the same time, there were eight subspecies of tigers in the wild – the Indian or Royal Bengal tiger, Siberian or Armur tiger, Indochinese, Sumatran tiger, South  Chinese tiger, Javan tiger, Bali tiger and Caspian tiger. The last three mentioned, unfortunately are extinct !