20th February
by Dr Sujit Kolangath
Tracking Tigress ‘Uncertainty’
If I have learnt anything about wildlife in my last years of my engagement it is, ‘Wildlife is synonymous with uncertainty’. Yes ‘uncertainty’ is what I associate the most with wildlife and I have my best reasons to do so. It was Day 5 of the Interventions in Wild Animal Health. We still were recovering from the fact that we were the unlucky few who could not sight a tiger on the morning of day 5 during the transect line survey. Dr. Bilal Habib was going to conduct a Radio telemetry field exercise for the entire batch of IWAH 2023. He divided the batch into two groups. I was in the group led by Alex and Stuart. After the initial hands-on Dr. Bilal cautioned us not to cross the wall of the palace as the collared tigress could be around. He also asked his student to get a willingness signed from each one of us. That was Dr. Bilal just being the best of Dr. Bilal!
We moved to the spot where we had seen the pug mark the previous day. As a group we were very optimistic that we will find the tiger. We started with the exercise, many of my colleagues suggested that we should start from the queens corner and extend our search to the pool area. Alex and Stuart were guiding us to track the tigress. We all anticipated some thrill and challenge in completing the task. After all we had sacrificed ‘Chai’ and ‘Pakoda’ for the exercise. The antenna was turned 360 by almost everyone in the group, there were no signs of the tiger. Meanwhile, the competition to track the tiger first reached its pinnacle, the other group was seen on top of the palace with the antenna trying to get the faintest clue of the tigress. That was a very well thought strategy.
Meanwhile, Dr. Parag started interacting with our group and he cross checked the frequency of the collar. I was happy that finally we were going to track the tiger. We were waiting to catch the glimpse of the large felid. But, the beeps indicating the reception of the signal were still unheard. The sighting seemed still far off and we only hoped against hope to see something exciting at the lag end of the day. Finally, with the adjustments of the frequency, we began our search. ‘Beep’..’Beep’..’Beep’.., there was no greater joy that the team could have. Everyone was keenly listening to each beep. I could see my friends still on the top of the palace, searching for the signs of the tiger. I pitied them. Few moments later, we were on track and the sound of the beeps was getting clearer. We moved through the scrubland towards the wall. I was hopeful of the tiger presence opposite to the wall. However, after a hundred meter walk we reached a point where the signals were received from all sides. This meant that the tigress was nearby. Dr. Parag was motivating us to search the tigress carefully. I looked around and noticed that my colleague Dr. Amit Oad was in the way of the direction leading to the tigress. As we further fine-tuned, we realised it was Amit who was holding the collar. This meant that there was no tigress. It was only mock drill!
I was happy that we made a sincere effort but at the end of the day, my perception that ‘Wildlife’ is synonymous to ‘uncertanty’ has gained good ground. As we were about to return back the other group joined us with their antennae with the hope that they would sight a tiger. Little did they know that the collar they were tracking was now in the black bag lying just next to them