Eye of the Tiger

Our jeep ground to a halt at a bend in the jungle trail near a dead tree. Awestruck, I gazed at inch-deep rents in the wood six feet off the ground. A male tiger had used this tree to mark his territory, and I had no trouble believing that he was calling the shots around there.

It was our first morning in Bandhavgarh National Park, one of the last tracts of jungle that once blanketed central India. Ruled by a population of 75 tigers, the park’s grasslands and forests overflow with animal and plant life.

Before we even entered the park, though, we’d already made one great find. We met Nils Urich, intrepid Norwegian adventurer and legendary moose hunter, at the train station. Following a recent overland trip from Cape Town to Cairo, Nils had improbably stopped in India en route to Antarctica. The three of us became fast friends, and Nils joined us on all our forays into the park.

From our first morning in the park, signs of the massive cat were all around us. We followed trails of six-inch paw prints, examined large piles of furry scat, and gaped at hardwood scratching posts. Despite a tingling in the back of my neck, the tigers themselves were nowhere to be seen.

As we followed the trail, however, we encountered herds of hundreds of spotted deer, peacocks in a mating dance, families of wild boar, resplendent tropical birds, sambar weighing up to 300 kg, eagles, monkeys, a solitary jackal, and a pair of tiny spotted owlets peering out of holes in a hollow tree.

The next morning, after teaching a group of 75 Indian schoolchildren to recite “Nils is an Eskimo” in unison, we resumed our search. Again we followed the massive paw prints, finally catching sight of a dark, distant shape in the grass with a twitching tail and ears. Later in the day, we caught a fleeting glimpse of a second tiger vanishing into a distant woodline. Finally, as light faded on our last foray into the jungle, we came face to face with the lord of the forest.

After a nearby jeep spotted a dominant male tiger at a watering hole, word went out across the park and a pell-mell chase ensued. Shrewdly anticipating the tiger’s movements, our guide positioned us near a game trail. The tiger padded out of a stand of bamboo less than twenty feet away and strolled casually past our jeep before remarkably turning onto the road. We followed at a respectful distance as the tiger led a procession of gawking homo sapiens on a five-minute parade down the road. Finally, as the last light of dusk faded, the tiger vanished into a stand of bamboo.