Close encounters of the tiger kind

All’s well that ends well. The quintet of tigers is said to be back in the enclosure and the five can be viewed together by the public soon, or so it is claimed. Displaying them in the same ‘cage’ would be the most transparent way to scotch the fears triggered by news that one of the tigresses was missing after a part of the wall of the four-hectare enclosure collapsed in the rainy season. The officials of the Vandalur zoo were guilty of opaque tactics in covering their tracks after reports leaked out on television channels that one tiger may be missing.

While wildlife keepers are not expected to spread panic by jumping the gun when it comes to announcing the possible escape of animals from the zoo, the least they can do is to take precautions in the perimeter first while enumerating the big cats and ascertaining that no straying has taken place. What was the point in allowing 5,000-plus people to walk into the zoo when the authorities were not sure all the animal inhabitants are in?

Imagine the fear in the school children around Vandalur, Tambaram and Kattankulathur if they were to attend school, although it was Saturday which meant school would have been restricted to very few students. The children of Paris in France had a scary experience in the same week when a tiger was said to have been spotted near Disneyland Paris. The situation was, however, well taken care of by the authorities there who took considerable precautions.

While dozens of police roamed the streets with tranquilisers aimed at taming the beast, residents of the village were told not to venture out as far as possible. Police were posted to guard the entrances to schools so children would feel safe. Other precautions taken were: The deployment of a dozen fire trucks, a helicopter with heat-seeking equipment, 200 firefighters, gendarmes and police officers armed with stun guns, and a sniffer dog specially trained to track bears and large game even as schoolchildren were given a police escort home.

The machinery to deal with the threat was called off only after animal trackers came to the conclusion that the intruder was something “between a domestic cat and a bigger feline.” In Chennai, there was far too much of somehow tiding over the problem – including by praying to various gods and goddesses – rather than dealing with the situation in hand. Do we not have trackers, wildlife experts and animal keepers with sufficient knowledge and bravery to get into the enclosure with tranquilisers and hunt for the ‘missing’ feline?

Speaking of tranquilisers, none was at hand when a mentally challenged person jumped the fencing recently in the Delhi zoo when an annoyed white tiger got at him and carried him some distance. There was not even a fire extinguisher handy with which to spray the animal as game keepers and visitors watched on horrified by the spectacle of a tiger in close ‘conversation’ with a man. But, at least in the Chennai wall collapse situation, there was time to bring in such aids from the vet hospital or warehouse where they are stored.

The number of tiger tales that hit the headlines around the weekend would have brought a smile or two on the faces of tiger conservationists as national efforts at saving the tigers seem to be bearing fruit.

The ghastly fate of a woman in Chikmagalur in Karnataka would, however, have brought a furrow or two about how to avoid these man-animal conflicts. Unfortunately, the coffee estate worker became prey to a man-eater and against such a scenario, it would be too cruel to think of the limerick about the smile on the face of the tiger.