Saving Tigers in India Means Some Villagers Will Be Killed, Eaten

Nemai Haldar, a wiry, sun-scorched fisherman, will never forget the day a Bengal tiger mauled his partner to death and then tried to drag the bloodied body into the jungle to eat.

“I wrestled the dead man from the tiger,” said Haldar, 35, who bears a livid scar on his arm from the incident three years ago. “When a tiger attacks, you only know when it is upon you, not before.”

Haldar’s friend was one of more than 600 people killed by the big cats since 1973, when the government set aside a 1,500-square-mile tiger preserve in the Sunderbans, a vast swathe of jungle in West Bengal traversed by countless tributaries of the Ganges River.

Tiger attacks have also claimed hundreds of lives in the other 14 areas of India where preserves were established under “Project Tiger,” a program aimed at saving India’s tigers from extinction.

In pursuing the altruistic goal of saving the tigers, the 15-year-old program has closed to some of India’s poorest people huge areas abundant in free food and fuel.

Nowhere is the conflict between preservation and human need more evident than in Arampur, a 150-family hamlet on the edge of the Sunderbans (which means “beautiful forest”) preservation area. It can be reached by a six-hour auto and boat trip from Calcutta.

Tigers have eaten about 50 fishermen--the sole profession of the impoverished villagers--prompting locals to rename the settlement Vidhwapara, which is Bengali for “the abode of widows.”

“The tigers should be killed,” said Anjana Biswas, 60, whose husband, brother-in-law and nephew have been eaten. “Sons are the illuminating feature of our life, and the tigers have extinguished the lamps of our village.”

Authorities provide 5,000 rupees ($385) compensation to next of kin in a tiger death, but most of the village women clad in white mourning saris said they were forced to depend on friends and relatives for survival.

Project Tiger officials appreciate the economic pressures that encourage an expanding population to enter the sanctuary for its enticing resources, but they say they will not open the nature reserve.

“Given a choice, everyone would want to have free access to a strongroom in a bank, but this is not possible,” said Arin Ghosh, Project Tiger’s local director. “Our efforts have turned the area into a nursery. If we let people into the core, the ecosystem would be disturbed.”

About 40,000 tigers inhabited India in 1900, but excessive hunting and poaching reduced the population to about 2,000. Project Tiger has succeeded in rebuilding the population to about 4,000, officials said.

About 300 tigers now prowl the Sunderbans. But Ghosh denied that attacks have increased with the population surge. He said more people were killed before the project began, when tigers roamed over wider areas.

A tiger typically singles out one member of a group and may stalk its prey for up to two days before pouncing on the victim from behind. Only one in 10 people attacked survive, usually in rare incidents when the tiger is spotted before it springs.

“The whole operation takes a few seconds,” Ghosh said. “We must look at human beings as another form of animal. Because of the occupation of the people of the Sunderbans, they make themselves easy prey to the tigers.”

The fishermen cast nets in small creeks and are attacked when they wade in beside the dense foliage to retrieve their catch. Wood gatherers are mauled as they forage deep in the jungle.

“I ask the men, their wives ask them, not to go back into the jungles,” said Sarala Mullick, 55, whose husband was eaten by a tiger 10 years ago. “But they must. It is their livelihood. They are born fishermen.”

Officials said that about two years ago tigers were killing more than 100 people annually--a rate they said was unmatched anywhere in the world. This prompted innovative steps to dampen the beasts’ taste for human flesh.

Any person entering the Sunderbans sanctuary now must wear a mask of a human face on the back of his head. This is said to make a tiger believe it is being watched as it stalks its victim from behind.

Honey and wood collectors also deter attacks by wearing fiberglass back plates studded with sharp spikes. Amid the bushes sit human dummies that give a stunning electric shock if bitten.

Officials said the tactics have made the tigers wary of attacking humans, with only 31 deaths in the Sunderbans recorded in 1987, the last about six months ago.