Amidst Poor Payment And Encroachment, One Of India¡¯s Youngest Tiger Reserve Records Highest Tiger Density In The Country

The Royal Bengal tiger is doing well in the Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park (RGONP). And multiplying. The park has the highest density of tigers, higher than that of Kaziranga, at 35.44 per 100 square km.

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Ranger officer Chakrapani Rai puts the tiger-number in Orang at 28. He says the number could be higher because not all the tigers in the park have been counted.

Fifty-year-old Rai is an old wildlife hand. He has spent half his life in forest reserves. The last five years in Orang. A day spent with Rai is instructive. He knows the reserve inside out.

Rai says he is on guard 24/7. ¡°You don¡¯t know when your day starts and when and how it would end. Life in the jungle is unpredictable,¡± he tells 101Reporters. ¡°I¡¯ve to make sure everybody is safe, animals as well as guards, and ensure that poachers do not poison the Tigers.¡±

RGONP is spread over 78.81 sqkm and straddles Darrang and Sonitpur districts of Assam. The nearest city is Tezpur.

On a clear day, the park is a sight for tired eyes. The dense green vegetation, the pelicans and kingfishers, the black necked stork and the pintail, the rhino, elephant, hog deer, leopard, civet and the Royal Bengal Tiger.

¡°The tiger of Orang is native to the reserve,¡± says Rai. ¡°They do not move out, though, a corridor connects Orang to Kaziranga.¡±

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Phase IV of the All India Tiger Estimation Programme of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) put the number of tigers in Orang at 28, i.e., 35.44 per 100 sqkm.

¡°The actual number is higher. That is because pregnant tigers go into dense and safer places,¡± says Rai. ¡°And the tracking cameras fail to capture them for the survey.¡±

There are 38 ¡°forest camps¡± in Orang. The camps are hooked to a control room (CR). A forest guard posted in the CR gets an hourly update from range guards of every camp. CR in turn keeps Rai up to speed.

Rai moves around the park in a jeep. He travels to boundary areas to check no animal has strayed out of the park. But there are places deep inside where the jeep cannot go. ¡°I often have to use the boat or the water launch; trudge on foot or travel elephant-back. I mostly travel alone.¡±

He is one of those who lives, ¡°Within the Indian reality¡± of shortages and shortcomings. His two big gripes are ¡°insufficient staff¡± and ¡°old guns¡±. Orang has a staff strength of 105 including 45 home guards and 15 forest guards to patrol and secure 78.81 square km of reserve area and a ¡°buffer zone¡± of 413.18 square km.

But Rai remains unfazed. ¡°It is not a normal official routine but then nothing in the wild is official or routine,¡± says the range officer, ¡°You have to work as per their (animal¡¯s) schedule. The rhinos may go out of the buffer zone. Then you worry about poachers. A tiger may go into a human habitat. Then you worry about the tiger. You ensure the tiger returns safely to the park.¡±

Before being turned into a wildlife park, RGNOP was home to the Orang tribe. A century ago, Kala Azar drove the Orang out. Forest guard Lankeswar Deka says the Orang worshipped Lord Shiva. There is an old Shiva Temple in the park. The reserve also has 26 ponds built by the Orang.

¡°They are called lotus ponds,¡± says the 48-year-old, pointing his .315 rifle like a finger at a water lily.

He keeps a 9mm pistol on him at all times. He also has a .315 mm. The last time he used the .315 was in April this year. ¡°We found some suspicious footprints on the east side. For two days we kept a watch on a stretch of the bank of river Paanch Noi. The second night the poachers fired. I fired back with my .315. In all we fired 16 rounds and gunned down two poachers,¡± recalls Rai.

In 2016, three poachers were convicted. The local population, mostly Bengali origin minority, employs poachers to kill animals. The poachers are Naga, Bodo, Garo and Karbi. They have sophisticated weapons like M4, 9mm pistols and SLR. Until this year, we didn¡¯t even have an SLR. It¡¯s very difficult to fight poachers,¡± says Rai. ¡°Only the bravery of our forest guards stand in the way. Rhino and tiger body parts are in high demand.¡±

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When the Brahmaputra is on spate, Tigers cat-foot it to higher ground. Even rhinos swim away from ¡°home¡±. In July, Rai and two guards spent two nights on a sandbar in the middle the Brahmaputra. ¡°We got information of a rhino crossing into Nagaon district. I and two guards went looking. We got marooned on a sandbar. Luckily the rhino returned. We had to spend two sleepless nights on the Sani Sapori (sand bar),¡± says Rai.

¡°Our animals hardly go far. When the Brahmaputra rises, Tigers come close to the camps. They don¡¯t attack unless disturbed. That is characteristic of the Royal Bengal Tiger,¡± adds Deka.

Forest guards risk life every day. Deka remembers a tiger attack on a forest guard five years ago in Borabazar village of bordering Udalguri district. ¡°The tiger went from Orang to Borabazar village to prey on cattle. The villagers trapped him. We rushed to the spot,¡± narrates Deka. The tiger was stuck in a net. Forest guard Haraprasad went to untangle him and get him into a cage. But the villagers wanted to kill the tiger. In the melee, the tiger sprang.

¡°It got Haraprasad by the neck. We somehow freed him and got the tiger into the cage but Haraprasad died,¡± recalls Deka. Another time a mahout was killed. Again because of interference from villagers. This was in 2013. Then, too, a tiger went out and killed a cow. Rai and 30 forest guards went to the village to save the tiger. ¡°We used a tranquillizer. The tiger hid itself in the swamp. The villagers started beating my men. The police and CRPF were called in. In the uproar, the tiger attacked our mahout. He died on way to hospital,¡± says Rai.

Since 2012 six Tigers have been poisoned by villagers. They poison the remains of a tiger-kill and when the tiger returns and feeds on the kill, the poison kills it. Rai laments the shortage of staff.

¡°We are blamed when poachers strike. But nobody sees our camps are set 2-3 km apart,¡± he says. ¡°Forest guards patrol day and night but workload increases if one of them takes ill or takes a day off. Even the gateman doubles up as a forest guard.¡±

Moreover, the forest guard doesn¡¯t come trained. Everything he learns is in the jungle. Rai blames the lack of service rules for the lacunae.

¡°After the 2013 tiger census, the government is aware. For the last two years training is being imparted. But we still follow the 1891 forest manual,¡± says Rai.

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The only saving grace is every Orang forest employee can fire a gun and navigate a boat. Even the watchman and the cook! Field Director of Orang reserve Sunnydeo Chaudhary says forest guards will shortly get AK-47s.

But there is no electricity, only solar power. The boots are awful. So are raincoats. And ration is always running short.

¡°Funds to upgrade and modernize camps; also train staff will be allocated shortly. NTCA will contribute 90% funds, 10% by the state government,¡± says Chaudhary.

But for Chakrapani Rai there is no place like Orang. ¡°When I first arrived, I used to patrol the park five to six times a day. I used to feel very satisfied after a tiring day knowing that all my animals were safe,¡± says Rai, dapper in a neat khaki uniform and a white hat, his 9mm tucked in a waist holster.

Rai also has his ¡°favourite spot¡± in the jungle. ¡°It¡¯s on the bank of the Jhauni, a tributary of Brahmaputra, with a beauty all its own. I often spend nights there with forest guard Tilak Bodo. It gives me peace,¡± says Rai.

Syeda Ambia Zahan is a Guwahati based freelance writer.