Tigress in Our Backyard

Courtyard House Kanha

Guests Simon & Toby + Family...The USA. 

Fifteen minutes after we left Courtyard House at the buffer zone of Kanha National Park there was a tumultuous uproar. Monkeys, chital, and sambar got busy ringing the bell. Alarm cries started ringing all over. The staff, alert as ever could quickly make out a predator's presence. 

From the intensity of the call, there was little to doubt that it was a leopard or a tiger. The calls continued as the predator crossed over our grounds a little distance from the fence and vanished into the dense canopy that surrounds Courtyard House.   

Ever inquisitive the guard went to inspect and discovered pug marks of a tigress. That was it a tigress in our backyard. A few days earlier we had heard a commotion in the late evening over a leopard ambushing a sambar fawn which it managed to kill. The next day its remains were found near the water body about hundred yards from Courtyard House.  

The guests came across a tiger at the entrance of the park near Khatia Gate hence all was well. The next day we saw Munna the tiger which dominated the region before the huge Karai Ghati male stepped in.

Tiger Photo Uday Patel