Gaur Country......Periyar Tiger Reserve

[V S Sankar]

I could count 33 Gaurs in this pic!....Never seen anything like this in my life!

After seeing the Wild Dogs devouring a Sambar this was in store just a few hills away at Periyar Tiger Reserve.

Canon 400D,55-250IS,ISO400,f5.6,1/200

Regards

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Lovely sighting. Nice composition. The uniformity in build of the adults and the light colour of young calves are the striking features of the image, as I see it. Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

P.S.: Five decades back our great teacher, Late Shri M. Krishnan had written that he saw only the larger (kind of The Gaur) in Kerala.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Wow...sighting 33 gaur in one place is amazing. Looks they are doing well in PTR.....
TFS
Roopak

[Shyamala Kumar]

Lovely birds eye view of PTR,with its thriving herbivore denizens.Nice to see so many of them .Does this mean that there are not enough tigers to keep the numders in check?Thanks for sharing.

[V S Sankar]

Thanks Shymala madam,Roopakji and Saktiji for the comments.

I don't know whether we can draw conclusions on the no.of tigers just because we saw a herd 33 Gaurs.As per my knowledge there are about 65 tigers here.But meeting them is very tough.

Since there is a large prey base the no.of tigers and leopards also may be high!
Regards

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice sighting of such a big herd of Gaurs and calves. Good to see them them grazing peacefully. Agree with such a large prey base, surely there would be a good number of tigers and leopards. Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice to see a good sized herd. At one time large herds of more than hundred used to be the norm before they got virtually wiped out due to rhinderpest. Gaur due to its size is not an easy opponent. Nevertheless Tiger is a not only powerful but also a clever predator and hunts even adult gaur. As prey Sambar, chital and wild boars are more killed than gaurs.