Earlier this year,
were heard that Vratika Chaudhry, a M.S. student under Dr. David Tonkyn, the
founding Advisor of Clemson T4T, was almost charged by a tiger on foot! Here is
her story.
“I conduct my fieldwork in Kanha Tiger Reserve, India for my
Master’s research here at Clemson University in South Carolina. For my M.S. research I am looking into
disease spillover risk from feral carnivores to wild carnivores in central
India. I was in India for my second
field season from January to May 2015.
During my fieldwork I came across a massive male tiger, too close for
comfort. Thankfully, no one got hurt and I will be able to tell the story and share
my memories forever.
On February 25th 2015, I finished my work for the day, and
decided to go for a walk in the buffer area of the national park. I asked my friend Dimple to come along.
Dimple Bhati is the hostess of a Kanha Jungle Lodge, which is one of the oldest
resorts in tourist zone of Kanha Tiger Reserve.
We had been planning to go for a walk for a while, but we
struggled to find the time due to our busy schedules. Finally when we got a
little time on our hands we went for the walk at about 3.30 pm. I had my
equipment in the car so I asked my driver/ field assistant to stay back. Dimple
suggested bring him along as well and he joined us on our trek.
So we walked about half a mile on the trail and we saw
footprints of a male tiger, relatively fresh, maybe from that morning. As we walked down the riverbank we heard a
long grumbling noise… I thought it was tiger roar. Dimple thought it was
elephant, as an elephant camp was nearby. We were confused because it was a
really long and low-pitched sound. However, it shortly stopped and we forgot
about it. We walked 1.5 miles further down the trail, and decided to go off the
trail, following an animal tract towards the riverbank. I can recall the three of us standing on the
riverbank, looking at black ibises, as Dimple was on phone telling her chef,
the recipes of beetroot soup. Both of us were a meter apart and the driver was a
couple of meters behind us.
 |
| A tiger in Kanha National Park, India |
Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I saw black and orange
stripes walking down the bank, about 15 meters away from us on the same side of
the bank. It took me couple of seconds to comprehend what it was and take out
words from my mouth- Tiger! “Where?!,” said Dimple. As she looked across the
riverbank searching for the cat, I pointed at the huge male tiger, 15 meters
away, who has just spotted us- TIGER!
The driver creeped behind us, peeked a look from behind me,
and decided to trace his steps backwards quickly. He kept telling us to trace
backwards as well, but we knew it was not an option; one wrong move on our part
and tiger would have attacked us in reflex. We could not find my driver for a
long time after that.
The tiger looked at us, all confused, as he was coming down
the bank to drink water out of the river. But he found us…and then he sat down
on his hind legs, looking intently at us. Dimple wanted to take a picture but I
asked her not to in fear that the tiger would react. Now we regret it :D. I was
constantly asking her to step back, one step at a time, as I thought it would
be good to increase the distance between the tiger and us. I took one step back
with my left foot and the tiger reacted! He moved one step ahead, ears facing
front, white of ears visible, face bent, and nose peeking...(attack mode). We
froze..
That was the moment when both Dimple and I thought, this is it,
we’re going to die! Dimple and I kept talking to each other and looking into
tigers eyes.. The tiger stared at us with intensity. All of us (Dimple, the
tiger and I) stayed frozen for three minutes, which seem to have lasted
forever, until the tiger decided to go back on the trail.
In that moment, we realized that we needed to run. We had
two options. Either go back on the trail and take the risk of bumping into the
tiger again, as tigers sometimes ambush from a different direction if there
prey has spotted them, or run through the river. We chose the second option. I
kept making loud noises the entire way. And somehow, we managed to get back,
alive and intact!
Even when we thought we would die, I could not stop myself
at being awed by that amazing animal, so muscular, so graceful, so fast, and
somehow in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t going to harm us, and if it attacked,
it would have been due to our stupid reaction.
Thinking about the behavioral science behind the whole
event, I had a few questions in my mind. So I thought I would answer them for
you.
1. Why did tiger not hear or smell us? (We were
quite loud on the trail)
We were on the bank that had a four-foot drop from the trail
on the either side that blocked our smell and sound. It was a hot day and we
were there in the early evening. I’m going to assume that the tiger just woke
up from catnap, as they do sleep up to 16 hours a day!
2. What was he
thinking when he saw us?
He was as surprised to see us, as we were to see him! He didn’t
expect to see us there. He was just coming down to drink water and he found us
instead.
3. Why didn’t
he attack us?
He was trying to figure out if we were a threat or prey. He
matched his moves to ours. All of his motions were reactions and then when he
perceived that we were not prey, he traced back.
4. Could the
situation have been worse?
Oh yea! If it was a mother tiger with cubs, and we were in
middle of the family, I would not be here to tell the story. If it was an
injured tiger or a tiger protecting its kill, again, probably I would not be
writing this post and hopefully someone would have published my results…
5. Did we deal
with the situation well enough?
Most likely yes! Well, we are still alive ☺ The worst thing we could have
done was to run and trigger tiger’s reflexes to charge.
6. So how do
you try to avoid a tiger attacking you?
Here is my advice: Go in groups, carry a stick, try to look
for signs like spray scents, scats, fresh pugmarks, and if a situation like
this arises, never try to run, try to look bigger, shout and beat the stick and
hope that the tiger would spare you. ☺
It was once in a lifetime experience, which I am never going
to forget.”
Vratika Chaudhary
Masters Students
Clemson University
vchaudh@g.clemson.edu
Thank you Vratika for sharing this incredible story! We are
so thankful that you are alive and well! For more information on Vritika’s work
with tigers, please visit Dr. David Tonkyn’s website at http://www.davidtonkyn.com/.
Go tigers,
Sean
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