The Curious Case of an Orphaned Cub

Place: Jim's Jungle Retreat
Time: May 2010
Story & Photos: Jaspreet Singh

It was deathly silent that evening, the first week of May. I was sitting next to the swimming pool at Jim’s Jungle Retreat, enjoying the slight nip in the air when around 9:30 pm the silence was broken by the piercing alarm calls of a cheetal, in feverish staccato.

Alarm calls - when an animal senses danger or is in distress - don’t surprise us very much; they’re a common, often nightly occurrence. But this call seemed special – the animal seemed particularly distressed and the calling came from that part of the forest that touches the retreat’s eastern solar-electric fence.

Solar Electric Fencing around the property

The calls went on for a while and then ceased, returning the night to the sounds of a nightjar and insects. I felt certain a predator had succeeded in making its kill.

The southern peripheral area of Corbett Tiger Reserve where we’re located gets very dry after March-April and I remembered a story from a staff member who was employed when the retreat was under construction that a leopard had visited a small water hole beside the property on a nightly basis some two years ago.

Could this alarm call be the result of that leopard on a hunt?

I couldn’t sleep very well that night, eager for the morning to come and make my own discovery. I was happy to see fresh pugmarks the following morning, a trail extending 100 meters along the solar fence. The pugmarks’ size indicated a large predator all right, but which one? They were neither too small for a tiger nor too big for a leopard. It could be either!

How was I going to correctly establish this predator’s species? There weren’t many clues for me to make a solid ID that day. But it became a regular habit of mine thereafter, to follow the pugmarks whenever they appeared again, which they did several times. I began keeping a record of the movement of this elusive predator – tracking the time and route the animal took. Being able to see it, however, seemed increasingly to me a game of chance.

Finally, two weeks later news came from one of our drivers that a tiger cub was sighted crossing the main road barely 600 meters from our retreat! This was it! The clincher. A sighting had been confirmed in the very area that I had seen the pugmarks. But something worried me still. Why was this youngster patrolling the area alone? A young adult is still considered a maturing cub, and is in training for up to 2-2.5 years of its life.

One mystery had been solved: The pugmark’s size finally made sense to me.  They were of a tiger cub no more than two years! But another equally curious mystery now arose: why was the cub alone at this crucial time of its upbringing?

It didn’t take too long to finally understand why this may have occurred. The clues presented themselves one evening. On a walk through the forest I saw two sets of pugmarks side-by-side, positively that of a male and a female. Could this female be the mother of the abandoned cub? The two were patrolling the same area the young cub was in.

It seemed plausible that because of the emergence of a dominant male tiger in the vicinity the female had abandoned the cub to save it from certain death. (Unless the male is the father, a cub’s life is threatened by the presence of a rival male.)

I felt sorry for the cub now and pulled nearly every trick from my training manual to fetch a sighting. I waited for hours one night on the track he normally followed, sat patiently by the waterhole another night, and up a tree some other nights.

This cub was entirely unpredictable! I guess having to fend for itself at such a young age, it needed to be a master of illusion!

On June 28 the body of a quarter-eaten blue bull calf was found 20 meters from the solar electric fence running along us! I was excited. For this was finally an excellent opportunity at a possible sighting. A yet-to-be-eaten kill meant the predator would return soon.

Cub kill: young Nilgai (blue bull) calf

It would have to be another vigil by the kill that night. A guest staying with us enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity and soon we were parked next to the fence just as it was getting dark, at a bend on the road that kept us well hidden.

After waiting for nearly 3 hours, and with no exciting alarm calls to break the silence, just rumbling tummies aching for dinner, we decided to return for a quick bite. Within a few minutes of us sitting down to eat, a loud and prominent alarm echoed from the forest where we were just minutes ago.

We ran back to the jeep, jostling for seats until they were all taken. The calls were now regular and furious. As we approached the area where we had parked earlier one could feel the presence of a predator.  And it was not long after that the cub appeared through a lantana bush, gingerly at first and then taking purposeful strides towards us!

This was thrilling! The young male could be seen clearly in the half moon light and here he was walking just 8 meters from the jeep. The sighting lasted a few seconds before he vanished into the darkness again.

I felt euphoric on having seen him after weeks of searching, and also tremendous relief. Having had a good sighting finally, it appears that this young cub has learned his lessons well to survive in the wild without the protection of its mother.

If he had survived these past three months, he would surely be a strong survival contender, given the harsh realities of forest living. Now when we hear the calls, we’re pretty sure it’s the cub on his patrol again!