This image was taken on the 13th of April 2021 in Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. A sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) was ambling along a path heading towards a lantana thicket, where a tiger was earlier spotted resting. Suddenly loud growls erupted as a fight broke out between the two. The hassled tiger came running out of the thicket and growled back, returning to where the bear stood in a show of resistance. Eventually, the ferocity of the bear drove the tiger … Read More
Tiger and Civet, Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, Karnataka
Nagarahole Tiger Reserve offers a variety of habitats with its mix of dry and moist deciduous forests. It is one of the best places to experience a wildlife safari full of surprises and thrills.
On a cool February afternoon in 2020, we were all excited to see a huge male tiger resting on the bund of a waterhole. Initially he appeared to be very calm. But soon he seemed a bit uneasy and stood looking up at the trees, seemingly … Read More
Conserving tigers against the odds: Lessons from Karnataka
The tiger is one of the most visible icons of conservation in India, and massive investments have been made for its conservation for over five decades. While there have been a few, well-documented success stories at the scale of individual reserves, there have been no concerted efforts to assess the efficacy of long term conservation programs at large regional scales (> 10,000 sq km). In a recent paper titled “Tigers against the odds: Applying macro-ecology to species recovery”, published … Read More
Indian Giant Flying Squirrel, Nagarahole
We were on a morning drive at the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve and we heard very loud and repeated alarm calls of spotted deer. We waited there for a few mins and we see this flying squirrel crouched on the base of the tree motionless. It was just beside the safari track. We left the place and came back to the same place after about 25 mins. Only the animal’s bushy tail was visible. Later it was gone. A very rare … Read More
Tiger Stalks and Hunts Down Wild Dog in Nagarahole
We witnessed an astonishing natural history moment while on a ride inside Nagarahole Tiger Reserve on the 20th of September, 2017.
Just as the rain stopped in the morning in the Kabini area of the park, our safari jeep came upon a tiger facing off with a large pack of dholes. The crouching tiger seemed ready to pounce, when a bike-borne forest department staffer came riding between them, inadvertently chasing both away. The tiger disappeared into a bush, so we … Read More
Rare Cinereous Vulture Sighted in Nagarahole Tiger Reserve
I observed three Cinereous Vultures (Aegypius monachus) in the Kabini backwaters area of the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve in December 2016. They were feeding on a kill alongside Long-billed Vultures and Red-headed (King) vultures.
This is just the fourth sighting of the species in South India though it is not an uncommon bird in North and Northwest India as well as the Himalayas. Just a few weeks ago an individual was seen flying over Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, in February … Read More
Langur Roadkill, Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, Karnataka
We were on an evening safari at Nagarahole national park on 9th June 2018. Because of incessant rains we had little wildlife sightings and decided to return when the downpour got heavy. We had reached the tarmac road connecting Mysuru (Mysore) to Kerala (State highway 33) and our driver stopped the safari vehicle. I was aghast to see the sight of a mother and baby langur lying on the road. I realized that the langurs had been tragically runover by … Read More
The Elusive Leopard Cats of India
Small felids, like jungle cats, leopard cats, fishing cats and marbled cats (among others) constitute more than 60% of all cat species in the world. But most of these small cats remain understudied because they are generally secretive, elusive and difficult to observe and monitor. In this aspect, the leopard cat presents a fascinating case study.
Leopard cats are among the world’s most widely occurring small cat species. There have been substantial studies of their ecology in Southeast Asia. In … Read More
Tourist Photographs Aid Tiger Research and Monitoring
Conservation India carried a photograph on 9th November 2016 of a tigress making a wild pig kill in Nagarahole. All tigers have stripes that are unique, just like human finger prints. To identify this tigress and trace its history, a WCS team of researchers working under my guidance rapidly matched patterns of this tigress against 850 other wild tigers, whose images are in our long-term camera trap database, maintained as part of a long-term monitoring of tiger populations in the … Read More
Tigress Making a Wild Pig Kill, Nagarahole
We were on a morning jungle safari on 29th November 2016 in the Kabini backwaters area of Karnataka’s Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. Repeated peacock alarm calls alerted to us to the possible presence of a predator. Soon, we saw this tigress on the track stalking some wild pig that were on the other side of the elephant proof trench (EPT). We were lucky to witness the tigress jump across the EPT into the agricultural fields of Machegowdanahalli village, make a kill … Read More
Local Hunting and Conservation of Large Mammals
Hunting wildlife for the pot and for commercial sale is far more widespread than most people realize, and is leading to an ‘empty forest’ syndrome in many parts of the country. M.D. Madhusudan and K. Ullas Karanth conducted a fascinating study on local hunting around two wildlife reserves in Karnataka. These are the results of their study, excerpted from their original scientific paper published in Ambio in 2002.
- Mammals that weigh over one kilo are the most prone to hunting
Incident of a Man-Eating Tiger in Nagarahole, Karnataka
News papers have been reporting the presence of a livestock killing tiger in agricultural fields and state forests outside the eastern boundary of Nagarahole Tiger Reserve over the last few days. Unfortunately on 25-August-2012 the tiger attacked a woman grazing livestock, killed, and partially ate her. On 26-August-2012 Forest Department staff managed to locate the tiger using domestic elephants, tranquilized it and moved it into captivity.
We have been carrying out long term monitoring of tiger populations in Karnataka using … Read More
Counting Squirrels in Indian Forests
Although the ecology of squirrels has been extensively studied, most past work is characterized by the failure to account for detection and heavy reliance on indices rather than directly measuring abundance. This has involved acoustic and visual surveys, sign surveys (tracks, middens and dreys) and capture-recapture sampling (trapping rates) methods are adopted to estimate squirrel abundance. Such field studies assume the detection probability of the species to be equal in all sites, leading to incorrect estimates of true abundance.
Authors … Read More
Elephants near Human Settlements
This was photographed in the backwaters of the Kabini River in Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. Across the river, just outside the reserve (Gendathur side of Bandipur Tiger Reserve), there are a lot of human settlements. Elephant Proof Trenches (EPT) protecting this area do little to stop the herds. Elephants easily swim across from the Nagarahole side to graze on grass on the Bandipur side, bringing them into frequent conflicts with humans. Cattle grazing occurs near the human settlements in the morning, … Read More
Mongoose vs Monitor Lizard
I took this photograph at Nagarahole national park, Karnataka, on 19th Nov 2014 around 6:00 pm. My friends and I were nearing the end of the evening safari when I saw a commotion in the bushes. I got a quick glimpse of a common monitor lizard (Varanus bengalensis). As we passed it by, a mongoose suddenly emerged from the bushes, so we reversed our vehicle to photograph it. Soon we were amazed to see the mongoose viciously attack … Read More
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