Lessons from the wild-1

Nature teaches you new lessons every day. Every action in the wild by animals is done with a reason. To learn one has to be alert and also have a good teacher to explain. In the forests of Corbett my teachers are the guides and drivers with whom I travel. This incident happened on a cold winter morning in 2017. I was with Nasir. As usual Nasir and our guide Sohan had predicated the moment of a tiger near the main road and we had taken up a good position to photograph the tigress when it would emerges into the open. The tigress came out as expected and also from the exact spot where Nasir had said it would come out and then we saw a strange thing happen. On the road there was a pile of elephant dung and the tigress rushed to it.

She first licked it

and then rolled all over it

before going back into the jungle.

I was surprised and asked Nasir why did it eat the dung and the explanation I got was a real eye-opener on the intelligence and thinking of the wild animals. Nasir’s explanation went like this. Sir the tigress has been unsuccessfully trying to hunt for the last three days. She feels her body odour is very strong and the prey is being alerted by it. What she just did was an attempt to mask her odour with that of the elephant dung to which the deer are used to and don’t bolt. Seeing that the Elephant dung is reasonably fresh she licked it to make it wet and then rolled on it so that it can stick all over her body. Thus she is trying to increase her probability of getting within striking distance of her prey without alarming them. This tactic of the tigress proved to be successful as that evening we heard that she has made a kill. Another lesson learnt in the jungle thanks to Nasir.