India (Frommer's, 4th Edition) - Keith Bain [449]
Under Rathore’s protection, the Ranthambhore tiger population increased from 13 to 40, and his dedicated study and photography of the subjects brought much of the tiger’s beauty and plight into the international spotlight. But at no small cost—Rathore was awarded the WWF International Valour Award after a mob of villagers, angry at no longer having access to their ancestral lands for grazing and hunting, attacked him, shattering his kneecaps and fracturing his skull. On his release from the hospital, Rathore simply returned to the village and challenged them to do it again.
After a brief scare in the early 1990s, when poaching (apparently by the park’s own wardens) almost halved the resident tiger population, numbers stabilized by the year 2000. Today, people like Rathore and Valmik Thapar, one of India’s foremost campaigners for the protection of the tiger, are once again fighting a crucial battle against widespread poaching; they argue that the authorities set up for the protection of the reserve are doing little. In fact, unofficial stories tell that Rathore was summarily banned form the park at one stage, having been too vocal against corrupt officials and their hopeless policies. But Rathore and Thapar were proven right; in mid-2005 an independent committee appointed to carry out a tiger census discovered that numbers in Ranthambhore had dwindled from 40 to 26, in spite of the presence of several new cubs. Some local tiger aficionados are more positive, however, and will remind you that by mid-2007 there had been a 2-year period without any poaching incidents; apparently there are now six cubs in the tourist zone and 12 in the entire reserve.
If you want to understand the tiger politics of the region, you will no doubt find yourself engaged in intense discussion at Sher Bagh and Ranthambhore Bagh, both good accommodations. Fateh Singh’s daughter-in-law manages Sher Bagh, while his son Goverdhan, a doctor, runs the nearby charitable hospital for the welfare of local people; it’s one of the best-run rural hospitals in India. They also run an excellent rural school (visitors are welcome to visit both the school and hospital)—all this based on the philosophy that unless one develops solutions in concert with local people, it won’t be possible to save the tiger for posterity. With an estimated 90,000 humans and almost a million livestock living within a 5km (3-mile) radius of the park, the pressure on this island of wilderness remains immense, but its popularity and the efforts of many wildlife supporters will hopefully stand it in good stead. You can also go to the website of Travel Operators For Tigers (www.toftiger.org), a U.K.-based organization promoting responsible tiger tourism and tiger research.
While tiger sightings are relatively common, don’t expect the experience to be necessarily a romantic one. It can be ruined by the presence of other vehicles, particularly the open-topped 20-seater Canters buses with whooping kids on board. Only a limited number of vehicles are allowed at any sighting, but this regulation is not always respected, hence the designation of different routes (see “Game Drive Formalities,” below) to keep number densities spread throughout the park. Even if you don’t spot a tiger (and be prepared for this eventuality), the sheer physical beauty of the park is worth experiencing—from lotus-filled lakes and dense jungle to craggy, boulder-strewn cliffs and golden grasslands. Other species worth looking