A lesson in how not to save a tiger

The cautionary story of Sundari is remarkable for many reasons not least because hardly anyone even knows about it This magnificent Sunderbans tiger dubbed the terror of Jharkali was all the talk in Calcutta in the mid70s after reports that it was a maneaterIt has all the elements of a great storymdasha fearsome monster a terrified population a great white hunter a thrilling capture and in the end a brutal lesson To me it is a heartbreaking example of the great harm sometimes done by humans setting out to do goodmdashI call it maltruism Sundari was a victim of the good intentions and ignorance of wellmeaning conservationistsVery little grows in the islands of the Sunderbans besides dense mangroves thanks to daily flooding by salty tidewater The vegetation shoulderhigh at its highest creates a desolate ghostly landscape full of omens and vague dreadJharkalirsquos villagers refer to the tiger as dada lest he feels summoned In the fields they wear masks painted with faces on the back of their heads to fool dada But dada the worldrsquos only fishhunting tiger has been marginalised in his own jungle for decades by creeping agriculture and settlements like Jharkali His territory now overlaps human farmlands incursions and encounters are unavoidable Sometimes the tiger will lash out sometimes a human will dieJharkalirsquos villagers decided to deal with Sundari the usual way by digging a deep pit concealed under straw and leaves Once the tiger fell into it they could poke it to deathThe World Wildlife Fund didnrsquot care for such solutions Indiarsquos tiger population had dropped from around 40000 in the 1950s to just about 1800 two decades later Word went out to Kathmandu where a lanky goodlooking conservationist called John Seidensticker was tagging tigers to study them Would he mind helping out with SundariThe plan was simplemdasha goat would be tethered to a mangrove bush Within firing range atop a freestanding machan about 30 feet high would be John with his anesthetising gun When the cat showed up hersquod fire the darts and knock the beast out Sundari would be caged and released into a farther island without human beingsTen days had passed and Sundari had come for the goat just once on a moonless night Seidensticker had held his fire unable to get a clean shotI was one of the last to arrive and made matters worse by disembarking one boat stop too early Suddenly there I was two kilometres from Jharkali ankledeep in sticky clay mud crabs and mangroves everywhere The sun had set the sky was darkening rapidly This is when tigers come outI walked along a raised embankment between swampsmdashpassing within 15 feet of SundariI know this because I met another journalist Abdi already drunk and lurching in the opposite direction towards Seidenstickerrsquos machan I learned the next day that Sundari had stepped out onto Abdirsquos path minutes later Man and beast had stared at each other one drunk and the other hungry Then the tiger disappearedThat night around 1 am the drums began It was a moment out of an Indiana Jones film As word spread that Sundari had been captured a ring of fire appeared along the horizon converging on the machan as villagers approached beating drums The tiger unconscious had been bundled into a crate and loaded onto a waiting boatSundari turned out to be Sundar a young tiger in his prime claws intact Not a maneater though perhaps a manhater It was midmorning when we reached the destination island The anesthetic was wearing off and the tiger was growling and stirringThe crate was taken ashore and turned on its side a rope tied to its sliding door The boat slowly backed away and the door slid out The tiger was free to goExcept that he seemed to prefer the crate Fingers stayed poised over cameras to record the historic moment a tiger was lsquosavedrsquo An hour passed then Sundari quickly emerged and slunk awayThere remained the question of the crate Being government property it had to be retrieved and accounted for But two days later when the boat returned for the crate they found it occupied The tiger was insideFour days later they found the crate vacant This time though they found the pug marks of two tigers around the cage The trail led down into the swamp where they found signs of an epic battle and the highly decomposed body of Sundar mauled to deathTigers are highly territorial each one needing about 10 sq kms Sundar had been saved from humansmdashbut unwittingly released into the territory of a larger stronger tigerHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper