Your wildlife experience in India

[Pckts]

Alright guys, I'm going to talk a little about the differences between Africa (Serengeti, Tarangire and Ngorongoro) and India (Tadoba, Pench and Kahna)


First let me say that this is very hard to do, Africa and India are so different. Africa is all about using your eyes, you look and see whats around, there are so many large herbivores and herds that it's very easy to spot them and the fact that Africa is open plains with little to no tree cover in most areas makes spotting them that much easier. In India it's all about using your ears, you drive and somehow your guide hears a faint call and the gypsy stops, you sit and listen. If you're lucky the call continues and you then begin to travel in the direction you hear it from, then if you're lucky you get a sighting, when I say "lucky" I mean it, there is absolutely no guarantee you'll ever get a sighting there.
The landscape is like two different worlds, Africa is beautiful vast open plains, acacia trees placed randomly with some boulders and mountain ranges in the back round. It's green and yellow and brown, the water holes are ground level and hidden at times, almost like an oasis in this gigantic open plain of thigh high yellow grass and dirt.
India is forest, the Sal Trees hide all sights, they are very straight and have green leaves or are barren depending on the reserve, you cannot see anything but trees until you come to a clearing or meadow. Most lakes or watering holes are smaller with some exceptions, Tadoba Lake and a few others are massive and beautiful, but even then, the watering holes don't have the massive amount of animals congregated at them the way Africa does. Each reserve is a little different, Tadoba is a much flatter Forest but beautiful , Pench is very hilly and much larger than Tadoba. Kahna is just massive, it's hilly but also with open meadows, it's green even during the heat of May and the higher up you go the better view you get of the enormity of it's forest. For me, Kahna was my favorite followed by Tadoba then Pench.


Spotting Herbivores :
Africa has the largest collection of herbivores on earth, it's so easy to see big herbivores there and the abundance you see almost makes you take them for granted. You no longer care about seeing elephant, giraffe, impalla, wildabeast, zebra, gazelle, buffalo etc. They become boring, you then set your sights on rarer sights, herdebeast, kudu etc. Most of these herbivores are extremely habituated to humans and even ones who are more shy, like cape buffalo surprisingly, can't hide from you. They can run but you can still see them clearly, it's so flat and open in africa.

Indian Herbivores are much more sparse, you'll see a few Sambar here, maybe a Nilgali or two over there, many langur and a few Gaur, the most abundant herbivore you'll see in any reserve is Chital. But once you spook a herbivore and it decides to run off into the forest, it's gone, the forest hides all from you. You can only get fleeting glimpses of animals in India if they decide to move off. Depending on the reserve will dictate the amount of other herbivores you get to see, in tadoba we saw a few gaur, in Pench we saw none, in Kahna we saw tons. In the meadows, especially during morning or late afternoon when the heat was less, they would gather in numbers around 15-20 with a bull or two. As you drive through the forest you'll bump into a big ole bachelor who is grazing on his own, he is the most impressive animal in the reserves I went to. Of the 3 reserves I went to, Kahna by far had the most herbivores I could see, the addition of the Barasingha makes spotting herbivores that much easier.

Spotting Carnivores :

African Carnivores are similar to their herbivores, they are much more abundant and easier to spot. Obviously spotting a leopard isn't easy no matter the continent but spotting a leopard in India is extremely difficult, it's almost miraculous if you do where spotting a leopard in africa is all but guaranteed given enough time and a good guide.
The forest is just to secretive, nothing is easy there, no matter what you're looking for you're going to have to work to find it.


Getting to each location:
In my opinion, this is the biggest difference between the two.
When you drive to the Serengeti or other reserves I mentioned, you only need to drive through the "city" for a short period of time and then most of your drive is on dirt roads driving through the outskirts of the reserve with not very many people to see outside of some maasi here and there and a few villages.
But when you drive from reserve to reserve in India you are driving through the cities and villages and they are extremely crowded and crazy. The traffic there is unlike anything I've seen in my life, the stares they give americans can be a bit unnerving in the beginning and there is a lot of trash on the roads. It's such a contradiction between the reserves and cities where africa the people seem to live with in the wild, in India, the wild has no hope of living with in the mass of people in the City. In my opinion, the traffic and trash is a detriment to Indian tourism. This is by no means an attack on India or the people, I had a fantastic time when I was there I just think they could generate much more tourism from American/European States and Countries if they'd have easier or more scenic access to the Reserves. But from my understanding, the new PM is doing amazing things and is loved highly there, I expect India to continue to grow into a world leader and innovator in the future.


Animal to Animal Comparison:

This is probably what most are interested in here so I'll compare what I can

A Sambhar is India's equivalent to a Zebra or Wildabeast in Africa. Sambhar are a bit more lean but are taller.

Chital are very similar in size to Impala

Nilgali bulls are magnificent but I only got to see a couple for a distance, they seem to be comparable to Kudu.




Now on to the Big Boys:

Leopard:
I only saw one male leopard in India and Africa so that is all I can compare

The Indian male leopard was large but not as large as the African, they were close in body size but the african had a much more robust head and body. The african leopard I saw was full belly and up in the tree while the indian was empty and panting heavily on the floor, he was also older, I could tell by his droopy and dark lips. But everyone I've spoken with who've seen both say that African Leopards are usually larger than Indians for whatever reason.

Gaur v Cape:
These two are very different in body composition. Cape Buffalo are more compact, they are more round in the body where a Gaur is taller and leaner in the body but more muscular. A large Bull Cape is shorter at the shoulder with a thicker neck and rounder body, A large Bull Gaur is just massive. They are thinner in the hind quarters but their front section is crazy. They have a massive muscular shoulder section and are very dense, like I said when I came back from Africa. I can't believe a lone tiger or lion can take down a healthy bull of either species, it still baffles me to this day.
But I must emphasize this, when you see either of these large bovine you must realize that they come in many shapes and sizes, very few are these monsters, most are a much more modest version, you would probably be disappointed when you first see a Cape or Gaur, you'd probably be expecting more since we usually only see the biggest of the big in photos. But when you see a large, healthy, Prime version, you then realize just how massive they truly are.

Lion v Tiger
The difference in body composition is just as much in these cats as it is in the Bovine.

Females are easier to compare, both are similar in dimension, but both my GF and my self thought that the Tigress just look a bit more strong in the limb section. Even a smaller tigress like Coti Tara, she is just very strong looking, her muscles were more taught. When comparing the biggest females I saw of either species, I'd have to give the edge in overall size in all departments to the Link 8 female, but I'm not sure if she is just a huge female or not, but she looked like a male to me at first, she was massive.

Males are way harder to compare, the mane of the Lion hides a lot but going off of what I can see.
Lions seem taller at the shoulder, the male tiger I saw in Tadoba looked very tall but he was much further off so I couldn't get a close up of him but the Sangam male I saw in kanha is said to be similar height to Munna, Bheema and other Kanha males and he seemed to be shorter at the shoulder.
Body length is very hard to determine with the naked eye.
But when it comes to robustness, the tiger gets the nod, they are more barrel shaped and their muscles seem more massive. Maybe they look more stocky because they seem shorter but they are very robust.

Their personalities are also very different, Lions seem very lazy and don't mind eyes on them, they don't give you much expression and they lay around, a tiger seems to be on edge and much more elusive. Tigers are always moving, even when at the watering hole, they are alert, they prefer to be unseen. The Sangam male was not on edge but on a mission, he was roaring for a female and was moving, tigers are more expressive as my GF put it. Lions seem more confident when around people while tigers just want to slink off into the forest away from viewing eyes but Tigers seem much more unpredictable. They look you in the eye and send shivers down your spine, lions just don't acknowledge you, like you're not even worth their time.

Overall they are two very, very different cats but both command the respect of a King.
Anyone who claims that one is way bigger than the other in any aspect is probably bias, you cannot compare them with the naked eye, they are too different.

In the end, Tigers and Lions are like India and Africa. They are incomparable, both beautiful and dangerous in their own way. Better to enjoy them for what they are than try to stack them up against one another. Reply