Reckless Behavior/Tadoba

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Friends sharing with you an image that I clicked at Tadoba Andarhi Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra, India. This is by no means a good act for tiger tourism by these tourists & I am even more surprised that a qualified guide from the forest dept who is present in this gypsy is also watching this at ease. This type of behavior has led to ban on Tiger tourism in our country. Despite making hand signals to this gypsy, they still chose to stay extremely close to this tigress. However after we made several attempts to make the tourist understand by hand signs, finally they moved away. This is the Kali Amba area Tigress, who had made a kill nearby and was on her morning stroll, probably she also had to walk a distance to reach a water hole and quench her thirst. We were driving from Navegoan gate and from a distance saw the gypsy & their reckless behavior. We were quite sure that this tigress will freely walk towards us, however as she walked toward us, too many private cars gathered and this lady got disturbed and moved away into the dense forest. It was good to see this beautiful tigress first thing in the morning; however the act by the tourist was a bit disturbing. I wonder why even private cars are permitted inside the tiger reserve.

Camera - Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon f4 500mm lens
EXIF - ISO 800 Av 4 Tv 1/1600 sec EC -0.3, Full frame
Shot on 26th January 2013 @ 8:38am

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Good that you tried to bring in some sense into these guys praveen, one major problem is that an average tourist is not well informed on the Dos and donots while on a safari. They just want to act brave or have fun. one can see the kind of antics people resort to when they see an animal on the highways which pass thru protected areas. If private cars are allowed and qualified guides encourage this sort of behaviour then it will go far worse.

I think this can be moved to the conservation imagery section.

TFS
Roopak

[Mrudul Godbole]

In Ranathambore also I saw same kind of behavior from tourists. Probably the guide felt he would get more tip as he showed the tiger from close and so didn't say anything. Hope some action is taken for stopping private vehicals in the park. Thanks for sharing.


P.S - I am moving this thread to Conservation Imagery section (CI).