Sad to hear that one tiger has died and one forest guard has lost his life. I guess the forest guard might have suffered a heart attack due to the fall and the extreme panic due to thought of being mauled. Any one can panic in such nerve wrecking situations. Nevertheless we will wait for the official post-mortem reports.

This situation brings into light the focus of our preservation efforts to individual tigers rather than taking a holistic view of protecting the landscape and its inhabitants. When there is a conflict between two tigers, in this case one larger tiger vs two adolescents, it is likely that one of them and most likely the adolescent displaying bravado to lose its life. I think that forced the forest department to intervene. An angry tiger can jump on an elephant back and cause serious maulings. I have seen elephants becoming nervous when tiger comes close by and there have been situations where people have fallen from the elephant back. In one situation a tiger had non-chalantly tried to stalk through the four legs of a forest department elephant. It was a bit too much for the elephant and it panicked and fled throwing away the tourists on its back.

Ideally the forest department should have gone with two or three elephants and approached the situation with the elephants moving side by side. This would have ensured that the tigers won't have the courage to attack.

It is also very important to understand the behaviour of the tigers and make the approach. One cannot simply walk into a fight and not suffer the consequences. One needs to make the tigers nervous and then break the battle. These are wild animals. Despite behaving like beautiful fluffy cats when one approaches them during a Safari, the power of these tigers is massive. Tigers even when tamed from childhood never lose their wild instincts. There will be conflicts when the space is limited. All around bandhavgarh tiger reserve there are private resorts or estates or the land is used for agriculture. A road passes through it. Contiguity with other forests is lost. Where will the tigers go to find a territory? We are only trying meekly to resolve some of the symptoms. The larger malaise of forests becoming islands among the sea of people goes unchecked. Is anyone listening?