Shashi had very short tenures of everything in his life. He left his motherland at the age of 36 months and came back at the age of 50 months or so. Although he never showed his presence by challenging any dominant male in the area, Sundar or Shaki.
That time I photographed him sitting quietly 100 mtrs away from a mating pair.
They all knew each others presence but because he never posed any threat that day the dominant male Shaki ignored him altogether and He was not dominant so female didn't show any interest in him.
He spent another year avoiding these two dominant male in Tala Range. He never had a chance to show any dominance on any of the female in Tala Range but he was always muscling.
Reason why her mother left the area was his slapping her on a dispute on a kill.
At last he was the one who challenged his own father and pushed him successfully.
I will say that he did not had more than 30 months peace in his life as Dominant male. Even less than that because once people saw him chased away from a kill by two young sub adults male from Mirchahni.
He had to face lot of resistance from these young males of Tulsi and Wakeeta but somehow he survived for some time but not very long.
It was these cubs who injured him badly in 2012 and he was missing for more than a month licking his wounds somewhere safe in some cave.
When he was seen he was still limping.
He never recovered from these wounds.
Another male Rahasy chased him away and beat him up in Chakrdhara.
He was chased from his main area of Chakradhara to Chorbehra side where he started moving till Thauni.
Here he met with another male Jobi and had a good fight with him.
In this fight he got his both foreleg injured but left one was more than other and Jobi lost his one eye.
In last three years he was hardly ever seen eating a natural prey killed by himself otherwise he was always seen attacking cattle.
He was unable to walk properly but otherwise he was perfectly fit to challenge any Tiger.
He proved this in last summer when he lost one of his tooth in biting to Tarun.
This day Tarun was challenging Jobi and they both were intimidating each other but none had the courage to charge.
After seeing Jobi going out of his territory Tarun started going back to his own sanctuary but he met Shashi on way. Probably in utter frustration of not being able to deal with Jobi this male charged on Shashi.
Shashi, showed him the strength of a Tiger although he was having an abscess in his both fore leg.
He bit him hard on his shoulder.
Mahavat saw two tigers rolling over on each other and growling but he was so far away that he could not recognise the other tiger. When he came nearby he saw Bamera sitting with blood dropping from his mouth.
This is the time when we reached to the spot and when we heard the story we went to look for other male.
We found him sitting behind the bushes licking his shoulder.
All what we could see through binocs that this male has both the eyes intact and blood oozing out from his shoulder.
He was not Jobi but Tarun.
In this fight Shashi / Bamera got his teeth damaged. This blood from his mouth is coming out of his gums.
Last one year or so was worst.
His injury on his left foreleg pad was still weeping. He had this injury since last 18 months or so. But last summer he had abscess in his both forelegs.
This made him unable to run faster and in this monsoon this wound must have gone bad to worst.
In August one day while coming back from Umaria I saw him crossing the road and walking in the grassland. He use to stop and shake his left fore paw. I thought he is limping more than usual probably because he got some thorn or stick or some mud struck to his wound.
His survival on cattle was a real threat not only on his own life but also on the life of the staff who were monitoring him or the Forest Staff in whose territory he was surviving. Forest staff were threatened regularly by the villagers.
He was a big liability in open area.
That time I photographed him sitting quietly 100 mtrs away from a mating pair.
They all knew each others presence but because he never posed any threat that day the dominant male Shaki ignored him altogether and He was not dominant so female didn't show any interest in him.
He spent another year avoiding these two dominant male in Tala Range. He never had a chance to show any dominance on any of the female in Tala Range but he was always muscling.
Reason why her mother left the area was his slapping her on a dispute on a kill.
At last he was the one who challenged his own father and pushed him successfully.
I will say that he did not had more than 30 months peace in his life as Dominant male. Even less than that because once people saw him chased away from a kill by two young sub adults male from Mirchahni.
He had to face lot of resistance from these young males of Tulsi and Wakeeta but somehow he survived for some time but not very long.
It was these cubs who injured him badly in 2012 and he was missing for more than a month licking his wounds somewhere safe in some cave.
When he was seen he was still limping.
He never recovered from these wounds.
Another male Rahasy chased him away and beat him up in Chakrdhara.
He was chased from his main area of Chakradhara to Chorbehra side where he started moving till Thauni.
Here he met with another male Jobi and had a good fight with him.
In this fight he got his both foreleg injured but left one was more than other and Jobi lost his one eye.
In last three years he was hardly ever seen eating a natural prey killed by himself otherwise he was always seen attacking cattle.
He was unable to walk properly but otherwise he was perfectly fit to challenge any Tiger.
He proved this in last summer when he lost one of his tooth in biting to Tarun.
This day Tarun was challenging Jobi and they both were intimidating each other but none had the courage to charge.
After seeing Jobi going out of his territory Tarun started going back to his own sanctuary but he met Shashi on way. Probably in utter frustration of not being able to deal with Jobi this male charged on Shashi.
Shashi, showed him the strength of a Tiger although he was having an abscess in his both fore leg.
He bit him hard on his shoulder.
Mahavat saw two tigers rolling over on each other and growling but he was so far away that he could not recognise the other tiger. When he came nearby he saw Bamera sitting with blood dropping from his mouth.
This is the time when we reached to the spot and when we heard the story we went to look for other male.
We found him sitting behind the bushes licking his shoulder.
All what we could see through binocs that this male has both the eyes intact and blood oozing out from his shoulder.
He was not Jobi but Tarun.
Last one year or so was worst.
His injury on his left foreleg pad was still weeping. He had this injury since last 18 months or so. But last summer he had abscess in his both forelegs.
This made him unable to run faster and in this monsoon this wound must have gone bad to worst.
In August one day while coming back from Umaria I saw him crossing the road and walking in the grassland. He use to stop and shake his left fore paw. I thought he is limping more than usual probably because he got some thorn or stick or some mud struck to his wound.
His survival on cattle was a real threat not only on his own life but also on the life of the staff who were monitoring him or the Forest Staff in whose territory he was surviving. Forest staff were threatened regularly by the villagers.
He was a big liability in open area.
The unfolding saga of glory and excitement of Bamera male in simple words is remarkable. Have read so much about him that would love to have a glimpse of him before his journey on the planet concludes.
ReplyDeleteBeing one of the fortunate's who had seen his father B2 during his prime in year 2003, while I was approaching the Gypsy on foot from the entrance of Badi Gufa, B2 was such an huge beautiful majestic gentleman tiger, he didn't even bother to pay any attention to our presence but silently and softly padding walked away into the dense shrubs, surprisingly there were no alarm calls. Can imagine his son Bamera must have got some of his genes