Oct 20th, 2012 - "I See You"
We woke up to another disappointment. No images on the camera traps and no new paw prints. Patience, I keep telling myself. Don't move the cameras just yet. We have no idea the actual size of this animal's territory, so it may be several days before it returns this way. One villager told us tracks are spotted every four or five days. I am hopeful this pattern continues.

We broke camp after breakfast and set out further into the jungle. Travel time for me was about one hour. The direction was southwest. We heard reports of a villager tending her cattle that had recent contact with a tiger.

People find each other out here using a human form of echo location. Loud sounds vocalized in a call and response fashion. It is effectively used to find people and judge distance.

We were able to find the young woman in thirty minutes time and then followed her into her home for tea.. She told us that 3 days ago, she heard a tiger “barking” in the night. Very loud sounds, giving the impression that the animal making these sounds was very large. She said that she went out with a flashlight as her cattle may have been in jeopardy. She was not able to spot the animal. I asked the woman why she believes what she heard was a tiger? Through my translator she told me that this past April she saw a tiger in the day time and heard these same sounds coming from it. She said the tiger would pass through almost every morning. “I know what a tiger sounds like.” she said. I showed the young woman a series of photographs. Tigers, leopard, snow leopards and clouded leopards, I started with leopard photographs. “No, It wasn't this one” she said confidently. “it had stripes, not spots.” I flashed to the photographs of the adult tiger. “It was like this one, only smaller. And the head was smaller, like in the other one.” (photograph of the leopard.) She convinced me that she knew actually what she had seen. We asked her if she had ever seen a leopard in the area. “No” she reported. She then told us that in the village about an hour's walk south (one hour for them, maybe one and one half hour's walk for me) word surfaced of a calf being killed in the night by a tiger a few days ago. She said that villagers ran out and scared the tiger away but it had already killed the calf and was trying to feed upon it. The next morning, the villagers salvaged the meat from the calf. We decided to send one of our team members into the village to investigate.

The rest of our team headed back up north into the jungle and came upon an 80 year woman who has been living in the area for 30 years. Surely, she has knowledge of tiger activity in this area. She invited us into her home for tea and fresh milk. Inviting travelers into your home for tea or the alcoholic brew chung, is very common. She said without wavering that tigers live in this jungle. She told us that she used to see tigers frequently during the daylight hours but that the villagers “discouraged” the tigers to present themselves by harassing them, among other things. Now, she said “I only see and hear them at night.” She said that the last time she actually saw a tiger during the day was seven years ago.

She was able to describe what tigers look like and said that there are also smaller wild cats in the area. Some of the wild cats are feral cats she told us, the males often leaving a village family for the jungle, once they became adults. I was amazed when she told us that she was able to identify tiger scratch posts, scat and paw prints. “The female prints are smaller than the males, and right now we have a female in the area.” Wow.

Now on my second cup of tea, the old woman said “Its good that you are trying to find and protect the tiger. But is the tiger wanted you to find her, she would show herself to you.” Deep, I thought.

Now I couldn't resist.

“Do you know what a Yeti is?”

“Yes”

“Have you ever seen one?”

“No, but my father did. They (Yeti) are all gone now. They aren't around anymore. Died off.”

She told us that her father said they were “pre-human” beings that shared the mountains. She told us that very few of the Yeti were left when she was a child.

Fascinating.