Sunday, June 3, 2012

Shaki aka Bokha

Shaki aka Bokha was first sighted on 11th January 2003 in the company of K2 called Juhi. That day I was not in the park. Kay saw him at Kadipaani. When they saw these two tigers coming out on road this male looked very surprised and shocked in presence of a vehicle. Neither Kay nor guide Manjeet knew this Tiger. They both decided to give him a wide berth so he doesn't disappear so quickly. They watched him from a very close quarter for more than an hour. Picture from that sighting still hangs in Manjeet's house.
Since then he started visiting this area. First time when he was seen he came in in pursue of following a female means he must have been strong enough to ward off other challenges. We reckon he was minimum 5 years old at that time. He was similar age to Sundar aka B2. 
He always had a little limp in one of his feet and he never had right upper canine. He preferred to walk on soft part of the road so either in middle of the road or on side of the road where soft dirt gets collected.
Jobi and Mukunda must have pressurised him initially to move out of his territory. He moved towards Bhadrashila and later in Khitauli zone behind Garhpuri but lack of prey brought him back to his old area. Remember in old age if they gets a chance they prefer to move in their own area from where they started their territory. It's not a thumb rule but often they are found there when they are old and see their end. He was looking for soft prey there but never intended to kill human as prey. Two people who got killed in that area were not eaten by the Tiger. None of them were chased/stalked and attacked by a Tiger. They both were an accident. Geeta Bai w/o Tilak Raj was attacked while she was collecting Tendu Disopyros melanoxylon leaves and Jamuna s/o Lakshman was attacked while grazing his cattle. None of the these two people were stalked by Tiger. 
Shaki aka Bokha died his natural death. He had some fight with some other Tiger. He knew that he is not strong enough to defeat his opponent so he must have decided to ran away that's why he got these superficial wounds on his right rump.
         He was suffering with arthritis, septicemia, infections from his injuries and Jaundice were major cause of his death. His organs must have stopped working.He died to a slow death. Food which he ate 2 days back did not moved out of his stomach.


 In this heat he must have been feeling very hot and dehydrated that's why he came to a stream, cooled off and crunched his thirst before saying final Good Bye to this world.