My First Tiger Part 2: Kanha--News

　　Kanha National Park is better equipped than other Indian national parks to withstand the pressures on its tiger population. It is 750 square miles and a day’s drive from Jabalpur, the nearest city. The best time to visit is February through May, before the searing summer heat and torrid monsoon storms hit. If anything it is the victim of its own success, with an increasing flood of mainly local visitors beginning to disrupt even this sanctuary’s wild inhabitants. So nowadays once a tiger is sighted numbered brass checks are distributed to keep the queues orderly.

A far cry from my first visit in 1984. I had a choice of the five unoccupied tourist huts. I remember one magical night, when I was awoken by a strange muffled sound surrounding my hut. It was a moonlit night and I peered out the single window to behold a herd of spotted chital deer. They had sought the comparative safety of human habitation knowing that predators such as the resident tigers and leopards were unlikely to approach.

Indeed the resident mammals had evolved a mutual protection system. The langur monkeys are safe from tigers when in the trees and they can also see tigers more easily from above. When they do so they sound a loud warning cry which also alerts the deer below. Sometimes though Langurs come down to the ground, to perhaps preen each other the better.