City-based naturalist Shardul Bajikar considers himself among the lucky few in Mumbai to have been in the team which spotted the pug marks of a tiger in 2003, on the border of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary. “I was in the last year of my college, and not many people wanted to go to the forest area, where locals had said they had spotted a tiger. So, I jumped at the opportunity,” says Bajikar, who has been associated with the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali for over 20 years now. The spotting of the tiger in 2003 helped Tungareshwar to be declared as a protected forest, within a year. 

“Very few people saw it but the pug marks and cattle kill gave enough evidence to suggest that tigers were active in the area for around three months,” he adds. The fact that the locals reported cattle kill and not smaller animals, which are usually killed by leopards, was another indication of the tiger. “I was with Wildlife Warden Mayur Kamath at the watering hole, and we came down to the base to eat breakfast and we noticed pug marks close by, and then there were a few ahead, where photographers were waiting to click pictures, but the tiger went into the forest, and got back on the trail from another place,” he says, recounting the experience.