Devices of fun and comfort

WILDLIFE tourism’s underbelly was exposed in Bandhavgarh National Park last month when a vehicle with tourists craving for a nocturnal sighting of the tiger hit the animal. The influential tourists had managed to stay in the park after it closed.

Death of a Tigress

MAY 19: Bandhavgarh National Park, Umaria district, Madhya Pradesh 5.30 AM: Safaris enter park 5.55-6.15 AM: A tourist guide spots a tigress by a reservoir. The tigress, Jhurjuria, lives with her three cubs in the Tala Range in the park.

Tiger transfer

Government sets up panel to set norms for relocation THE National Tiger Conservation Authority has set up a panel to formulate guidelines for translocating tigers from one reserve to another. The need for the guidelines was felt after tiger conservationists raised concerns when a tigress from Bandhavgarh tiger reserve was tranquillized and taken 200 km by road to Panna tiger reserve on March 3. Both the reserves are in Madhya Pradesh. The translocation was part of the state

Panna to get two tigresses

But will that save the tiger reserve from heading the Sariska way? TWO tigresses from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve will be introduced in Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh by February 2009. "We have sighted fewer tigresses in the last couple of years. Bringing in two would help us restore the sex ratio in the reserve," said L K Choudhary, field

Uproar over tiger show ban

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh's instruction earlier this year to ban 'tiger-shows' at the Kanha and the Bandhavgarh national parks has been the source of considerable simmering dissent in the state's wildlife establishment. The discontent has burst into the open with wildlife authorities blaming that decision as the direct cause of the decline in the number of wildlife tourists to the parks when their winter season opened in November.

Stars in stripe

A FEW months ago, mornings at the Kanha national park began with mahouts loping off to scout the area around park headquarters for tiger spoor. After a tiger was spotted and made to settle in one spot, tourists would be brought in, 4 at a time, for a "dekho" at the striped felines. The Madhya Pradesh government banned these shows at Kanha and the Bandhavgarh national park, effective May 14, 1994, with 20-minute jumbo

When opposite poles attract

TOURISM is often in conflict with conservation and, because tourism is often detrimental to natural resources, conservationists view the relationship between the two with a degree of unhappiness. There could, however, be a situation where tourism and conservation are organised so that both benefit from the relationship. This means that while natural assets are conserved as far as possible in their original condition, an increasing number of people derive wider benefits from nature and natural resources.