A knight to the rescue: Sir Richard and WildAid unite for tiger conservation

On Monday, Jim’s Jungle Retreat was humbled, honored and extremely excited to host a discovery excursion for international donors looking to aid tiger conservation at Corbett Tiger Reserve under the guidance of WildAid, an international wildlife conservation organization, and the Virgin Group’s non-profit foundation Virgin Unite.

Sir Richard Branson and his son Sam Branson were here to encourage donors to give to this urgent and important cause, to appreciate the area’s stunning diversity of plant and animal life and the various issues facing the Corbett landscape.

The two-day program began with a visit to Choti Haldwani, Jim Corbett’s adopted village, where the group interacted with members from the Corbett Gram Vikas Samiti, a community-based tourism project.

This was followed by a jungle walk in the forest by the retreat. Groups of five and six set out along the riverbed and were intrigued to see first-hand the ample signs of wildlife in this forest buffer. A key take away for them was the importance of patrolling these areas as well. A well-protected forest that provides buffer to a larger protected jungle gives tremendous advantage to the wildlife within the main reserve. Animals don’t recognize borders, we do.

The next day began with an early morning start. The safari vehicles were out before sunrise and headed to Bijrani for a full day, stopping for lunch at Malani’s beautiful forest rest house, a 1900s vintage bungalow. And while a tiger sighting was not to be, Sir Richard and Sam enjoyed a quiet hour on elephant back in the spectacular grasslands in Bijrani.

What was extremely positive about the Bijrani experience was the group members’ appreciation of the forest and what it offered: quiet and solitude, its nurturing energy, a magnificent terrain, and animals roaming in the wild as was their true destiny.

Later, in the evening, Sir Richard presented the Deputy Field Director and Corbett’s forest department with a rapid response vehicle that is hoped will be used for anti-poaching efforts and to resolve man-animal conflict. At dinner, the donors interacted with the Deputy Field Director and learned about tiger conservation and Corbett management’s plans for safeguarding its precious heritage.

We hope that the destination and event served the foundation’s goals well and that their donors too are mightily convinced of this worthy venture for tiger and Corbett conservation. Among WildAid and Virgin Unites’ goals is the protection and restoration of wildlife corridors - essential migration corridors that help in maintaining a healthy gene pool. Along with proper protection of buffer forests, this corridor protection is vital for the tiger, threatened as he is by large-scale loss of habitat and degraded forest. Community outreach is another area that is part of the funds focus. We would be happy to help in all of their efforts, starting out with the expansion of our own community outreach programs.

We wish Sir Richard and Sam, and the entire team at WildAid and Virgin Unite great success in this important program they’ve set out to accomplish. Thank you for coming to this part of the world to learn about our issues and to offer much-needed action-based support.

Links:

Reuters report:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/11/02/idINIndia-60270320111102

Report in India Today

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/richard-branson-wildaid-animals-facing-extinction/1/158065.html

WildAid's India chapter

http://www.wildaid.org/india?page=0%2C2

Sir Richard's blog

http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/the-tigers-of-india

This includes a WildAid film on tiger conservation.

NDTV link
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/ndtv-special-ndtv-24x7/richard-branson-on-saving-the-tiger-in-india/215463?hp

A new logo for Jim's Jungle Retreat

I am very pleased to reveal our new logo, which we hope will inspire conversation, provoke conservation-related discussion and provide new energy to our philosophy of “Seek the tiger, find the jungle.”  

The tiger pugmark logo offers an entire jungle to the onlooker – the pad reveals leaves and a tree, its toes are shaped to represent four additional elements found in a forest: amphibian and aquatic life, reptilian species, insects and avian varieties, while the pugmark itself represents the over 50 mammalian species found in Corbett, including the tiger.

Do let us know what you think of our new mark. We at Jim's Jungle Retreat, Corbett Tiger Reserve, look forward to your reactions. 

A purple affair

Place: Jim's Jungle Retreat

Time: December 8, 2010

Photostory: Majid Hussain

“I was walking on the path connecting cottages 1 and 12 that stand opposite each other. I noticed a Purple Sunbird sitting on one of the trees in the wooded area there.

A Purple Sunbird in eclipse, Majid Hussain

A Purple Sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus) isn’t a rare sight at the retreat. They’re very active in the morning atop the powder puff bushes and elsewhere on the property. This bird’s colors however seemed rather unusual. The yellow on it was striking! I thought it could be a new visitor!

I took a picture with my camera to record what I though might turn out to be a new species at the retreat. On referring my bird book later that day it became clear that the bird was indeed a Purple Sunbird, but in a very rare eclipse stage. (The eclipse is a brief post-breeding plumage adopted by males.) There were at least five different colors on this beautiful bird.”

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!