The tourism conundrum - An insider responds

Here is an article that I wrote for the Sanctuary magazine :

A few weeks ago, I received a scathing response from a ‘tiger activist’ friend to an article I had posted online about the conservation value of tourism. After blasting my views, he finally stated that what tigers really need is “isolation from the forest department, researchers, scientists, locals, tribals, conservationists, hoteliers and tourists.” While it sounds like the perfect solution to all our problems, we do not live a perfect world. It would be ideal if our biodiversity would be protected for its intrinsic natural value rather than economic benefits but years of petitions and campaigns have still not translated into concrete results, and much of the public is still distanced from conservation. It is high time we consider a broader triple bottom line – market, environment and society. The reality is that tourism is here to stay, whether we like it or not. But the positive aspect of tourism is that it can be made into a winning formula, if we really want it to be, and use it for the advantage of wildlife.

Green bucks

There are few pristine wilderness habitats left in India and the majority of them are surrounded by human habitation. Ranthambhore – a prime tiger reserve – has been described as “an ecological island surrounded by overgrazed pastures and agricultural fields” in the Management Plan of the reserve. Nearly 100 villages surround Ranthambhore National Park and these villagers depend on the park’s resources for their livelihood – fodder for cattle, fuel-wood for their kitchens and minor forest produce for sale. The farmers who own land around the reserve use every possible means to keep wildlife off their fields, including hiring poachers to kill them. The only pro-biodiversity economic activity around Ranthambhore (and most of the Protected Areas in India) is tourism.

Traditionally, the forest department and most conservationists “have seen tourism as a necessary evil with zero conservation value.” Many forest officers and old school conservationists have accused me of the ultimate wildlife crime -- of “making money from wildlife.” My answer always remains that I do not make money out of wildlife, -- poachers do that. Yes, I make a living but my work supports and sustains the park, its wildlife conservancies, buffer zones and local communities.

Tourism is the only economic activity that values wildlife habitats as ‘economic zones’ and is the only ‘industry’ that pays for biodiverse, standing forests. Tourism is also a very effective anti-poaching unit in many Protected Areas in India, possibly the most effective given the poor track record of patrolling. Consider how few patrolling vehicles we have in most tiger reserves and compare this to the large number of tourist vehicles plying through the tourism zone. Little wonder the tourism zones seem to harbour the highest tiger densities. Dr. Raghu Chundawhat, an imminent tiger scientist, has stated on record that the Tala zone of the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh held a greater density of wild tigers (by far the highest in the world) than he had ever believed possible in such a small area. Of course, the Tala range also happens to support one of the highest tourist densities out of all our tiger reserves.

Tourism, to a large extent, was responsible for the revitalisation of African wildlife. In a developing country like South Africa, wilderness tourism generates US$12 per acre per annum, while agricultural land yields just US$3 per acre. Furthermore its national parks are virtually financed by tourism revenues. Mountain gorillas ‘earn’ $200,000 per annum in permit fees alone Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda, and the indirect revenue is probably 30 times greater. Living Kenyan elephants will help bring in $1,000,000 in tourism revenue in their lifetimes, while a local poacher will earn less than $300 for the value of elephant ivory.

Let’s move to tigers. What is a tiger worth? The tourism zone of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve, which has around 20 tigers, contributes over Rs. one billion – directly and indirectly – to the Indian economy, every year. Of course we have a problem here. Over 40 per cent of this amount never reaches anyone in Ranthambhore and barely three per cent actually goes to the park.

A different kind of wildlife tourism

Sanctuary readers hardly need to be informed that “traditional” wildlife conservation practices in India have failed. This is primarily due to the ‘one size fits all’ approach” of wildlife tourism in our country. Travel Operators for Tigers (TOFT) – a campaign for responsible use of wild habitats in India sums this up well: “There is a growing recognition that tourism presently available within tiger reserves is often of poor quality in terms of facilities, interpretation and guidance, is ‘one species’ (read tiger) centric, often at loggerheads with park, community and tourism officials and offers little support for local communities.”

We – tourism professionals, including myself – are largely responsible for the mess in which wildlife tourism finds itself in India, but it hardly helps that government’s policies too run counter to what effective and sustainable wildlife tourism needs. Considerable blame must also be apportioned to the unfulfilled promises of major tourism ‘players’ including corporates, travel outfits and hotel chains. Most have adopted a “green” language because that is what travelers now want. But value tourism has not been internalised by them. Wildlife tourism must be built on the premise that it should empower locals, increase awareness and contribute to wildlife conservation.

Ranthambhore is an excellent example of what is wrong with wildlife tourism in India. Spread across nearly 300 sq. km. (50 per cent of which is a tourism zone, which supports most of the park’s tigers), Ranthambhore is encircled by almost 100 villages and three small towns. Yet only five villages and two towns have somehow cornered 90 per cent of all the tourism revenue from this destination. A small ‘cartel’ of hotels, local travel agents, suppliers, shop owners and transporters are earning money, the rest get nothing. Why should they support the park?

Yes, tourism provides some employment to locals, these are ridiculously low-paying jobs. There is more. Of the over 100 guides, 80 per cent have little wildlife knowledge or real training. The hotels are all located along on a short strip between Sawai Madhopur town and the sole entry point to the park, thus concentrating tourism benefits to a tiny fragment of the population.

Alternative tourist options such as hiking, birding and camping are discouraged even outside the park. The entry fees to the park are so low as to constitute a mere five per cent of the budget of most tourists. Meanwhile, the national park is woefully short of funds. To add insult to injury, as of now not a rupee from the entry fees goes towards conserving the park, though technically 75 per cent of these fees are labeled ‘eco development surcharge’.

The list of contradictions and problems is endless and could possibly be applied to almost any Protected Areas (PAs) in India. This is why “a dead tiger is worth more to the local villager than a live one.”

The way forward

Julian Mathews founder of the TOFT campaign, suggests that wildlife tourism in India needs to “provide a much more rewarding holiday experience for visitors, raise the quality of life of local communities, and protect the natural environment.”

So how do we achieve this? To make wildlife tourism an effective conservation tool in India we – conservationists, the government and tourism professionals – must change our own archaic thought processes regarding both tourism and conservation. There are no magical solutions but there are a few things that we can do. Almost all PAs have core zones, which are out of bound for tourists and a buffer area where tourism is permitted. The density of wildlife is much higher in the tourism zone and the core area is rarely monitored. Predictably, most wildlife offences including poaching, cattle grazing and woodcutting take place in the core zone, where offenders have a free run. In Ranthambhore, the poaching incidents that took place between 2003 and 2005 only came to light because poachers started targeting tigers in the tourism zone, after they had wiped out tigers from the inaccessible core. Field biologists and forest officers need to work together to come up with a plan that suggests how tourism in core areas can be turned into a monitoring exercise for a few days each month. The revenue generated could pay for 24x7 patrolling, 365 days a year. This does not mean that the core zone be turned into a ‘free for all’ because wild animals do need the solitude that is often denied when noisy vehicles and tourists enter. But surely it is time now for us to work out sensible ‘tourist carrying capacities’ for park? And no, the current carrying capacity analysis is not going to cut it. Often this constitutes a simplistic formula park managers come up with to arrive at figures stipulated by ‘higher ups’. So we accept 90 vehicles a day as the suggested carrying capacity of the Tala range in Bandhavgarh, while this actually exceeds the carrying capacity of the entire Ranthambhore tourism zone, which is three times the size of the Tala range.

We need to get real about wildlife tourism. Visitors are able and willing to pay much more. In some parks, the fee is even lower than the price of bottled water in a mid-range hotel. And there is nothing wrong with charging special-interest tourists including photographers and birdwatchers more for the privilege of longer, (carefully) supervised excursions and permissions to use hides, or guard outposts.

We should explore the idea of developing a tourism buffer within the forest buffer area. In most parks, for instance, agricultural fields begin right where the forest ends, leading to human-wildlife conflict. If hotels in wildlife areas were only permitted to set up facilities in harmony with the land on just two per cent of their land holdings, they could be persuaded to manage the rest of their land holding with the same strict rules that are implemented within the national park. If this were done, within a few short years, we would have a high biodiversity tourism buffer on the periphery of most parks. This would not only add to the forest area but reduce the tourist pressures at today’s over-crowded entry points. And, of course, ‘tourist cash’ would automatically reach locals.

So will we see a situation where degraded wildlife habitats next to PAs are leased out to tourism facilities, rather than to paper mills around Tadoba? Or land ‘developers’ and industrialists around Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Periyar, Bandipur and Keoladeo? I hope so, because if this is not done, I believe the noose around the PA network can only tighten, till it throttles the biodiversity that brings in the tourists.

The forest department controls over one-fifth of India’s total land area and the vast majority of these lands are going from bad to worse. The department lacks the resources to revive and nurture them. Leasing them out on very strict terms for wildlife tourism might just be the most effective, least risky way to revive these degraded forests. In the process, according to Sanctuary, local communities and the forest department itself could legitimately earn a sizeable amount from the carbon trading regimes that are currently not able to do much to actually help counter climate change.

The bottom line? Forest and Tourism Departments, the tourism industry itself and local communities need to recognise the benefits of working together on systems and solutions that restore health to our wildernesses. The economic and the ecological health of our nation will improve, poaching will come down and the more popular parks, which are hotbeds of local conflict, could see a wonderful transformation with locals community leaders and tourism professionals taking on the role of ‘wildlife activists’ in India.

The gentleman who is busy photographing the tiger from the ground (which is strictly forbidden in Indian Tiger Reserves), in the above picture, was the Deputy Director of the Kanha Tiger Reserve in Central India. So much for responsible behaviour.

Happy Diwali

Greetings on the occasion of our festival of light.

Update from Ranthambhore

It’s been a long time since I posted on the blog. I was on a long vacation and got back to Ranthambhore about 3 weeks ago and since then I have been busy trying to make a living. Yes some of us have to do that. Here are some updates from Ranthambhore:

1. The Park reopened to visitors on the 1st of October after being shut for three moths of monsoons. This year the monsoon rains were spectacular. The best that I have seen and all the waterholes in the park are overflowing. The park is lush green and there should be no major water shortages in the dry summer months.

2. The cubs of the Guda tigress that was found dead in September are still alive and kicking. They have been killing deer fawns and are apparently doing well. A true miracle. They are just about 10 months old – one male and one female – and have been taking care of each other. More about this in a later post.

3. In the Sultanpur area of the park (southern part of the national park) a tigress has given birth to two cubs. They were probably born somewhere in the late summers and have been seen by a number of visitors in the last three weeks.

4. The Forest Department has come out with a new policy to govern tourism, which is a total disaster. This policy is neither good for tourism nor for conservation and has ended up making Ranthambhore the “most visitor unfriendly park in India.” Basically it has made life extremely tough for people like me who make a living out of the visitors who come to see the park.

5. I learnt something really amazing yesterday. The Rajasthan Forest Department has started an “official inquiry” into my blog. A senior Forest Officer who is based in Jaipur is the enquiry officer. Apparently some people took some print out of this blog (mainly of some stuff that I had posted when tiger poaching was at its peak in Ranthambhore – 2004 or so) and sent them as a “complaint” to the Forest Department in Jaipur. The Forest Department, for obvious reason went ballistic and have now launched an enquiry on how I could post such stuff. The site under question is not this one but one called http://dickysingh.com , which is my personal website and basically has the same posts as this one with an image gallery etc. What really upset me is that they took three years to know about something that is so public. Just goes to show that no one really reads what I write. ☹

Tigress found dead in Ranthambhore

Yesterday afternoon (1st September 2008) the carcass of a tigress was found in the Guda area, that lies at the southern end of the Ranthambore national park. This tigress was known as the Guda female (see picture below) and was over 10 years old – an old age for wild tigers – and had two cubs that would slightly younger than a year in age. The cubs are missing and even as I write this the forest department officials are trying their hardest to find the two cubs.

According to the forest department sources the carcass of this tigress was found in the early afternoon yesterday in a highly decomposed state. She was probably dead for over two days. The forest department officials cremated the body after conducting an autopsy. The autopsy report is yet to be released and probably never will be, at least the likes of me will never see it.

It is being made out by official sources (and the national media has really lapped it up) that she died in a “territorial fight” with another tiger. The Press Trust of India (PTI) newline says “Rise in Tiger population in Rajasthan's Ranthambore Sanctuary seems to have given rise to "territory wars" among the predators…………………….. the Ranthambore national park, spread over 400 sq km is busting with robust tiger population. As per a 2007 census, the number of stripped animals have increased from 25 in 2005 to 32 last year. The figure excludes cubs, whose number is estimated to be around 14.”

I would like to clarify the following:

1. The Ranthambhore national park is spread over an area of 282 square kilometers and not 400, as PTI (India’s leading new agency claims – come on guys get your facts right).

2. The official census data of 2005 claimed 26 tigers in Ranthambhore and not 25. The real figure at that time was 13 adults and 5 cubs (all below the age of 6 months).

3. The census figures for last year were 32 (released early last year) and this census was the most exhaustive one ever undertaken. This figure of 32 included all the cubs. After these figures were released 8 more cubs were born and two of these (the cubs of the Guda tigress) are missing.

4. The tiger numbers have definitely increased in Ranthambhore, in fact they bounced back from a near calamity. But Ranthambhore is not (by any standard) “busting” with tigers. Ranthambhore national park and the two adjoining areas where the tigers spread to (the Sawai Man Singh sanctuary and the Sawai Madhopur sanctuary” can easily accommodate over 40 adult tigers. This was the number that existed in 2001. Right now there are about 22 (I may be off by 10% plus or minus) adults and that is not “busting” at all.

Rajasthan’s leading regional Hindi newspaper – Rajasthan Patrika – also adds that the forest department is not ruling out death due to poisoning and had sent the viscera for investigation into this angle. This is really interesting.

The area around Guda and further south (outside the national park – where there is little protection for wild life) of it is the beginning of the “Ranthambhore tiger death zone” – I mean that’s where 15 or more tiger have disappeared in the last 4 years. There are a few “forest unfriendly” villages in that area and few large settlements of former hunting gathering tribes (Mogiyas, Bagariyas and Kanjar).

The Guda tigress shares her area (map below - area in dark was her territory) with a few villages. Her territory overlaps with that of two male tigers – one is her son from the last litter and the other is the father of her new litter (the two cubs who are missing right now). It is highly unlikely that she was killed in a fight with one of these two tigers. Her present mate would not fight her and her son dare not.

I don’t know how she died but I would bet my cameras (the most precious possession) that it was not because of a territorial fight.

Ranthambhore – Sariska and tiger shuttle – Part II

……….About a year ago the Rajasthan Forest Department declared that they would relocate tigers from Ranthambhore to Sariska to right the wrong. When they fist came out with this plan almost everyone (including me) laughed at it. Most people (not me this time) had declared Sariska as history. A few months after it came out in the news that there were no tigers in Sariska – four of us – Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (Field Biologist of Tiger Watch), Dr. Amit Kotia (a fine botanist), Juhi Chaudhry (the then co-coordinator Kids for Tigers) and I – had gone to Sariska for a few days. At that time the Project Tiger and the Government of Rajasthan were still denying that tiger had been wiped out from Sariska. We had some great wildlife moments there. The habitat was amazing but the tigers were missing. Just a few weeks after we came back they government finally conceded that there were no tiger left in Sariska.

This was a big blow to the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Project Tiger, in fact, to the entire conservation movement in India. But nothing much changed. The budgets, priorities, procedures and staff stayed the same. But a handful of officers of the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Rajasthan police worked their heart out. The protection level went up dramatically. A number of poachers were apprehended and suddenly the poaching community (mainly members of the Mogiya and Bawaria hunting gathering tribes) was on the run. A convicted tiger poacher from Ranthambhore – Devi Singh Mogiya – told us this, on camera. The Mogiyas and Bawarias are off shoots of the larger Pardhi tribe. The general public opinion is that these people are extremely dangerous, very secretive and totally ruthless. They maybe ruthless for wildlife but they are really scared of any kind authority. They may be secretive but at the local level I was common knowledge that they were poaching big time. It is just that no one really bothered about them, till Sariska happened.

Once the protection level increased tiger numbers in Ranthambore gradually recovered. In May 2005 the Rajasthan State Empowered Committee had declared that there were 26 tigers in Ranthambhore, which was untrue. At that time there were only 18 tigers – 13 adults and 5 cubs. Till a month or so ago there were 23 adults (one of the earlier 18 – Yuvraj - a young male was killed by Mogiyas somewhere in the end of November and six newer cubs had grown up), 6 sub adults and 8 young cubs. I could be wrong here by one or two but that would be about it.

Left and Right cheek markings of the first male tiger (T 10 or the Darra male)that was moved from Ranthambhore to Sariska

There were recent media reports that the forest authorities had sighted 14 cubs (below the age of 4 months) during the hot summer months of 2008. This was hogwash. There are right now 8 cubs (in four different families) and not 14. And out of these 8 only 4 had been positively till the end of May. I don’t know how this figure of 14 came up. Anyways these figures are not really important. What is more relevant is that the population is on the recovery mode. Ranthambhore is not overflowing with tigers (as it is made out to be) but it is definitely on a rapid recovery mode.

By the beginning of this year the relocation plan became very serious. A lot of our “cocktail party” conservationists were dead against the plan. A few (that included me) were skeptical about it (in fact till a month ago I use to think that the Forest Department may not finally have the nerve to pull it off) but were not against it in principle. This was the only idea if Sariska had to be revived as a tiger reserve. The habitat and prey was there in Sariska but the tiger was missing. The experiment had to be tried out, even if it failed.

I have not been to Sariska in the last 6 months but the news that I was getting was that a few, actually five, enclosures – where the tigers would be released as soon as they reach Sariska. Once the tigers get over their “trauma” of the journey, they would be released.

By the second week of May most parts of the park were closed for tourists. The only part that was left open was the area of the lakes and the part from the lakes to a forest guard post called Guda (towards the southern end of the Ranthambore national park). The tourists were not complaining because this is one of the most popular part of the national park. Monitoring of tigers in the closed part of the park was intensified and some tigers were short listed for relocation. By the middle of June a few of the shortlisted tigers were radio collared, besides the three that had been radio collared some months ago.

Left and right flank markings of the second tiger that was moved to Sariska - a female called Bachhi

The tigers that were shortlisted were young tigers that had separated from their mothers about a year or so ago. A tiger of that age group would have just about established (particularly females) their territories in Ranthambhore but would not have been totally entrenched there. To move even one tiger, four or five would have to be identified so that they would be able to surely find one of them to tranquilize a few hours before they were to be air lifted.

The plan was to make a stopgap helipad inside the Ranthambore national park, where an Indian air force helicopter could land. Experts from the Wildlife Institute of India would tranquilize one of the identified tigers, put them in a covered cage, load this cage on the helicopter and fly them to Sariska, where they would be released inside the enclosures. Sounds easy but it is very difficult to pull off.

In late 2007, three tigers were radio collared in Ranthambore for monitoring purpose. When this was done, we suddenly realized that the Forest Department was serious about shifting tigers to Sariska. One of these three tigers – a male that is slightly over 3 years old and is known as the Darra male or T 10 – was the first tiger that was the first tiger to be relocated to Sariska. The helicopter arrived in Ranthambhore on the evening of the 28th of June. The idea was to relocate the first (of the five – 2 males and 3 females) tiger on the morning of the 29th. It almost did not work out because it was raining heavily on the 29th morning. The tiger (Darra male) was located and the entire forest team was waiting for the rains to stop. Slightly after 1000 hours or so the rain stopped, the tiger was tranquilized, put in the cage and airlifted. It was real touch and go. The tiger recovered from the tranquilizing dose in midair but was still too dazed to move around. They managed to land him in Sariska and move the cage to one of the enclosures. The top brass of Rajasthan Forest Department was in the helicopter with the tiger.

A forest officer told me that the moment they opened the gate of the cage, the tiger almost charged out of it and hid behind some bushes in the enclosure. They had left a bait for him in the enclosure, which he killed a few hours after being released but did not eat till much later.

On the 6th of July a tigress, known here as Bachhi (or daughter – because she is the daughter of a Ranthambhore most famous tigress – Machali – from the last litter) was similarly moved. This time the entire operation went like clockwork. Bachhi was my favorite, an absolute beauty, and I have some amazing pictures of her. What was interesting is that these two were territorial neighbors and had mated about a month ago. Both of them are still very young so the mating may not be fruitful but they would be surely recognizing each other’s scent. A day after Bachhi reached Sariska, the Darra male was released from his enclosure. He is now free to establish his domain. The forest department has been cleared the first big hurdle but there is still a big hill to climb. I am sure they will climb it.

In the map pasted below Bachhi's territory is marked in red, while the Darra male’s territory is marked out in black. Hope they do well.

Hats off to officers like R N Mehrotra (Chief Wildlife Warden, Rajasthan), R S Shekhawat (Deputy Field Director, Ranthambhore national park), R S Somashekhar (DFO Sariska) and their supporting staff. You pulled out the first two rabbits out of the hat. Congrats.

Ranthambhore – Sariska and tiger shuttle – Part I

About an hour ago I checked my mail and got a shock. There was this comment on my last post (Shooting with Andy Rouse) from Anubhav, who I presume is a person of Indian origin living in the USA. It goes something like this (for those who are too lazy to read the entire comment).

Hello Aditya, Nice to know about your nature photography 101. Reading your blog for the past 1 year. I have come to expect a lot of the serious stuff plaguing the park like what were your observations on Sariska translocation? How is the dam doing? Did you find takers for cash pooling? Are the poaching tribes still on the fringes? May I politely suggest that please keep your post like you kept them earlier i.e. mainstream pressing issues get the lime light……..Keep justifying your name-- THE SUN-- and give life to Ranthambhore.

I began replying to him ………………………………

Dear Anubhav, I though there was just an overkill of "serious" tiger news in the media and on the net for the last few months. :)…………..Almost everyone in India has overnight become an expert…… and is working to save the tigers. Just got bored of serious stuff and taking a break from it. That is one of the reasons I have not been posting much for the last 4 months or so.

There were two thoughts going through my head. One, I did not know that people actually “read” my blog. And two, I did not know that people take me seriously (my wife does not). And then I decided to blog it. Seriously.

Sariska Tiger Reserve was one of the original “nine” wildlife sanctuaries that were taken up under the Project Tiger in 1973. It was an excellent tiger habitat (still is) but due to poor protection the number of tigers there started dwindling in the middle 1990s. Somewhere in the later half of 2004, tiger disappeared from Sariska, shot dead by commercial poachers. Most of us (including the Project Tiger directorate in Delhi) came to know about it, when a friend of mine – Jay Mazumdar – wrote about it in a national daily newspaper called the Indian Express. I have an earlier post about it.

Soon after that there was a big media outcry about tigers. For almost a year before “Sariska Zero” became news there were reports of tiger crisis coming from almost all over India and Corbett tiger reserve was probably the only Project Tiger Reserve that stayed crisis free. Suddenly everyone became with access to media became tiger experts and lot of wildlife conservationists woke up from their sleep. And all this happened over night. There was no crisis till the day before Indian Express exposed Sariska zero. What followed became wildlife history in India. We heard stuff like “Rajasthan does not deserve tigers”, “hang the managers of these reserves” etc. But nothing changed at the ground level (I mean at the various Project Tiger Reserve level).

Of course no such hanging took place. A few Forest guards in Sariska were suspended, a few committees and Task Forces were formed and they published their reports. The Government of India and Rajasthan ended up with egg on their face and Project Tiger got really bad press publicity. A lot of “tiger lovers” and “wildlife conservationists” – both professional and amateur – got all excited and tried to get their “15 seconds of fame” and some got much more than that. Everyone declared Sariska a “basket case.”

Does Rajasthan deserve its tigers? Tough question to answer. I think India does not deserve its tigers. But we have to remember that tiger are not just our national heritage, they are our planet’s heritage. And I don’t think we, Indians, deserve to be the guardian of this global treasure. Why? Because despite such a big outcry nothing really happened. We were very happy shouting and cursing the Forest Department but we just plain refused to really correct the situation. A few very superficial measures were undertaken and we were happy. The conservationists declared that the crisis was over and “good news” started pouring from all over. We started hearing things like “massive budgetary outlay for tiger protection from now on, army commandos deployed in tiger reserves, tiger reserves have been sealed and declared inviolate” and so on. No such thing happened at the ground level. The budgets did go up – from pathetically low to very low, army commandos were actually retired army personnel who had no understanding of wildlife, Wildlife issues rose from lowest priority for the government to very low priority. Basically nothing changed at the ground level.

There was some genuine good news. Ranthambhore, which had almost got decimated, revived but that was mainly because a few officers and officials worked their heart out. Corbett was another good news – again thanks to a handful of officers and officials. There was no change in the outlook of the Government of India, except for some very slick media management. And most of the media lapped it up. There were a few sane voices in the media – journalists like Bittu Sehgal – the editor of Sanctuary magazine, Jay Mazoomdaar, Prerna Singh Bindra and a few more but their voices were partially drowned out in the din.

About a year ago the Rajasthan Forest Department declared that they would relocate tigers from Ranthambhore to Sariska to right the wrong……….

Shooting with Andy Rouse

One great thing about living in Ranthambhore is that you end up meeting some of the best nature photographers in the world. I have been fortunate and have worked with some of the biggest names in nature photography. The best time I have ever had – fun and learning – was the two months or so that I spent with Andy Rouse this year. About a year ago I got a mail from Andy. I don’t know how he got my contact. In the mail he mentioned that he was coming to India to shoot and was vaguely interested in coming to Ranthambhore. He had asked me a few very “tricky” questions about shooting conditions in Ranthambhore basically to test if I knew what I was talking about or not. Apparently I passed the test. I doubt if he would have come to Ranthambhore if I had failed. We exchanged a few zillion mails before he finally came down in March with under Tracey Rich Just a few months before he came down to India he had changed his entire equipment from Canon to Nikon. He was carrying 2 Nikon D3s (probably the most awesome 35 mm format DSLR that I have seen) and 4 four lenses. His main gear was the D3 with a 200 to 400 mm Vibration Reduction lens – which I would rate as the best gear for shooting tigers. One of these days the Bill Gates foundation is going to send me a lot of money (apparently they help out the under privileged a lot) and I am going to buy this gear. The three of us – Andy, Tracey and I – spent a week in Ranthambhore in the middle of March. We had the best tiger driver in the world – Salim Ali – who is a naturalist in Ranthambhore but had been driving a jeep here for over 20 years before he became a naturalist. He has helped make about 10 wildlife documentaries and understands Ranthambhore (besides a dozen more wildlife areas in India) better than anyone alive. And boy did we have a blast. Andy shoots amazingly well, so he obviously got some mind-blowing pictures. But what was more surprising was that me -Aditya "Dicky" Singh– with my humble gear and limited experience ended up getting many pictures that were in focus. He taught me how to pan – I mean he taught me but I still have not learnt it as yet. I routinely miss getting the subject in frame, keep crashing my lens against whatever is nearby etc etc – basically keep messing up. However, I have promised Tracey that one day my panning shot of a “tiger chasing a deer” is going to win the BBC wildlife photographer of the year award. One day – hopefully within this century. Besides panning they also taught me one more really important thing – that is – to delete, delete, delete. Sorry I meant edit, edit, edit but for guys like me delete and edit is generally speaking the same thing. Just before I met Andy Rouse, I had two 500 Gigabyte hard drives that were full of RAW images. Now I am planning to sell both of them because all the decent pictures that I have will fit in a 4 Gigabyte CF card. (Anyone interested in buying two 500 GB Lacie hard drive can drop me a mail – I will sell them cheap). There were a few things that we taught Mr. Andy Rouse (or Sandy Grouse, as we called him). One was how to do some serious beer drinking – from sunrise to sunset. If you check his profile on facebook, you will find a picture of him all painted up and slightly (actually seriously) drunk on Kingfisher beer. Guess who took that picture and guess who opened all those 20 bottles of beer – yes sir you got it right (that’s if you got Dicky Singh as the answer). That was on Holi (the Hindu festival of colours – as you would have guessed both Salim and I are great Hindus). That afternoon Tracey and Poonam (my wife – in case you did not know that – you moreons) were the only two sober people at The Ranthambhore Bagh. Salim claims that he was sober but Tracey did not think so, specially after he almost crashed the jeep a dozen times in the afternoon safari. After a week in Ranthambhore, Tracey, Andy and I left for Kaziranga in Assam. Kaziranga was good but not a patch on Ranthambhore – nothing is a patch on Ranthambhore, when it is rocking and believe me Ranthambhore was rocking in March. Machali – the tigress who is the lady of the lakes – and her three nearly full grown female cubs were at their best. Tracey and Andy went off to Bandhavgarh after a few days in Kaziranga, while I stayed on for another week. I had hooked up with Nik Devasar and a few other great friends from Delhi Bird Club in Kaziranga but that’s for another post. Towards the end of April Andy came back to Ranthambhore for another few weeks. Tracey had gone back to UK, even though I had offered her a job as the “Honorary Bar Tender” at The Ranthambhore Bagh. This time it was my study time. Andy taught me a lot of amazing things about photography. Unfortunately I can’t tell you about them since they are classified. But yes delete, delete, delete in one of them. There are two amazing things I have to tell you about that happened in his “second coming”. One was that we finished digging three wells and their associated waterholes in Indala. Thanks to Paramo / Andy Rouse / and a few of my other friends (see my post on Indala). The picture below was taken when one of the wells sprouted for the first time (the good looking guy is me) and that night a male tiger spent the whole night in the water hole. The second one was a friend of Andy’s – I can’t tell you his name – that’s classified too. A few hints – he is big (horizontally), loves his beer (that probably describes every second man in UK) and the big clue is that if you buy a greeting card in UK, chances are that you have made him some money. I hope you read this Mr. Big Man. Andy has threatened to be back soon. I still have to teach him how to drink Old Monk rum and I have another 4 GB card to fill. Delete, delete, delete. Did I learn anything - that’s for you to guess? All the pictures posted here were taken with Mr. Sandy Grouse, except for the one of me below. Andy took this one and I think it make me look good. ☺