Tigers of Ranthambore & Western India Landscape

[Pckts]

Dharmendra Khandal

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Tiger story - 30 


The Tiger & the Porcupine

In January 2018, I got a call from a Village Wildlife Volunteer who asked me,' Sir, do Tigers not kill porcupines?'. I told him that of course they do & eat them too. He then sent me a very unusual camera trap picture which showed a porcupine walking or rather 'dancing' right in front of the Tiger, T-91, while the Tiger looked on in indifference. 

I mumbled to myself, ' porcupines are a weak spot for T91'. This image was taken by camera trap when T-91 was straying away from Ranthambhore, following which the Forest Dept. relocated him to the Mukundhara Tiger Reserve in Kota. When he was still in Ranthambhore, the poor guy tried to hunt a porcupine only to be impaled by several quills. The quills were so deeply entrenched that he had to be tranquilised & treated. The veterinarian told me that they needed pliers to remove the quills. There have been many cases in history when a Tiger has either succumbed to porcupine quills or worse, turned to man-eating afterward. This Tiger was lucky that he was treated. He seemed to have learnt the lesson of a lifetime after his deadly brush with the porcupine.


Him when he was injured

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Souvik Kundu‎
Making his Mark: T-86



Ranthambhore National Park

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2018 Reply