The Nepal Tiger Project

Oct 12th, 2012 - First Investigation

0500 hours. For some reason, people up hear tend to raise with the sun. So, when in Rome...

I crawled out of bed and made my way quickly to the out house. The morning are was cold and slightly breezy. The entire family of this mountain hotel (father, mother, two girls and one boy) made it a point to come to my room to say good morning. Its safe to say, that I am the first black American they have seen pass through their village.

After breakfast we made our way down the mountain and across the Likhukhola river 2,500 meters to the other side. Even though the trek down hill is a lot easier on my lungs, the steepness of the terrain made it hell on my legs. Not wanting to pound my knees to death over the course of this trip, I walked down unidactyl style. Using my toes to break the gravitational pull propelling me forward. Both my toes and quadricep muscles where over worked by the time we reached the valley's bottom. And even though is was late in the season, I managed to pick up both a tick and a leech along the way.

By 1630 hours (4: 30 PM) we had reached our next destination. I received a report that three tiger sightings had been recently made in this area by local people. A young woman was said to have witnessed a tiger in the woods as she was gathering wood with two other women. Another young woman saw a family of tigers, and a village family had their dog mauled in an alleged tiger attack some four or five days earlier. We were able to locate all of the witness and interview them as to their tiger encounters.

The one young woman who said she saw a family of tigers was collecting wood and took it to a place where her family had built a cattle structure. This structure is where they leave this animals overnight when allowing the cattle to forge in the forest during the summer months. She told us that she saw three tiger sleeping around the back side of the structure and became very frighten. She believes it was a family group as one of the tiger's was considerably smaller than the others. But the young woman admitted that she was so frighten, noting the size of the animals was not foremost in her thoughts at that time. The tigers woke up and saw her but did not attack. They instead, moved away further into the forest. She said that this encounter was approximately one month earlier. I showed the young woman a series of photographs of different wild feline. (tigers, leopards, snow leopards, and clouded leopards. She successfully described and identified photographs of tigers as the animals she had encountered.

The village family who had their dog attacked four or five days ago, did not see what attacked their dog. They explained that the attack occurred in the middle of the night and that it was very dark. They had heard their dog barking, then yelping and whining, in a way that had not heard before. When they went out side with the flash light, the dog had been taken off his chain and dragged dog the hill. The owners assumed the dog was being attacked, as they could still heard him crying out. They through stones in the direction of the sounds and made lots of noise. Moments later, the dog crawled back up the hill, bleeding and with large bite marks on its neck, body and head. When we tried to examine the dog, it was clear that he was still traumatized over his ordeal and would not let me get too close. The marks did, however show up clearly.

The third woman we interviewed was also collecting wood with two other women when she saw what she said was a tiger walking just below her as she rounded the top of a hill. She was very frighten and cried out, causing the animal to move off. When shown a series of photographs of various big cats, this woman identify what she saw as a leopard. Leopards occur in Africa and parts of the Asian continent. The leopards in Asia are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN . If the young woman did in fact see a leopard, it is believed to be the subspecies known as the Indian leopard (Panthera pardus fusca).

This trip is about locating tigers in a part of their historic range, which I believe we will be able to do. Finding leopards will be an added bonus.