Various animals and species have been capturing the imagination of Humans since the beginning of the civilization due to their majestic powers.  Myhtology and history of Human beings usually referred to various animals as the kings. The limitation on  geographical and biological knowledge caused various civilizations to accept different animals as the King.

We have compiled a list of animals that can be considered as the most powerful in various nature kingdoms. There can’t be an absolute definition to the crown in Natural world, so the list is open for debate!

King of the Animal Kingdom on Land – The Lion has been considered as the King of the animals by most of the civilizations for it’s Majestic look, strength and top predatory nature. But unfortunately once well spread across the globe, the King is currently confined to only African Savannah and India. The Lion can grow beyond 300 kg in weight and 9 feet in length(excluding tail). The mane of the male Lion gives it a royal look making it the King of all the animals. Lion takes the top position in the predator list and no other animal keeps the strength to kill a full grown Lion.

Lion - King of the Animals

Though Lion is the King of  animals, it lives only in Savannah, there is another distant relative of it who rules the dense Jungles of Earth. Yes, it is the biggest of all big cats, Tiger.  With black stripes on rusty reddish or brown coat and the white fringes around it’s face make the Tiger attractive and very much different from others. A large tiger may weigh more than 350 kg and more than 12 feet in length (excluding tail). Tiger is the most powerful and intelligent hunter in the jungle and is unbeatable.

The King of the sky is the giant Eagles in various part in the world. The Philippine Eagle in South-East Asia, Steller’s Sea Eagle in the coastal region of Asia, The Wedged-tailed Eagle in Australia, Martial Eagle in Africa and Harpy Eagle in America are rulers of the sky in their respective regions. They are expert hunters and the most powerful as no other species can beat them in the sky.  The Steller’s Sea Eagle which the heaviest among them can grow beyond 9 kgs in weight.  These eagles have body lengths of more than 1 meter and can have wingspan of 3 meter (Wedged-tailed and Martial).

The King of the Oceans is Killer Whale or Orca. Though blue whale is the largest animal in the Oceans and White Shark is the largest and sharpest predatory fish, Killer Whale is known to even kill both of them. This mammal is gigantic in size and is equally intelligent and powerful hunter. They are known to hunt seals, sea lions, dolphins and at times large blue and grey whale and also giant white shark. There is no species in the sea water that kill this King.

And at last the King of the whole planet Earth, whether it’s land or water or sky, is Homo Sapien or Human due to their intelligence. No other species can even close human. They are a keepers of the planet and have the responsibility to save all other species.

The big cats of India has been fighting with the increasing population in the country. There are regular incidents when Leopards or even Tigers stray into villages and create unexpected situations. We have here captured some of the examples where the big cat gets trapped in men dug  wells and struggles to get out of it. It creates nervousness and frustration in the animal and sometimes even injures people.

May 28, 2012

A wild leopard fell into a water reservoir tank at a tea estate in Sangatram, some 30 kms from Siliguri, in West Bengal, India. After various efforts by authorities, the Leopard finally escapes using a ladder put by the rescue team from Mahananda Wildlife sanctuary.

The Nervous Leopard struggling to climb the well - Diptendu Dutta / AFP

Leopard climbing a ladder - Diptendu Dutta / AFP

Feb 29, 2011

Within a span of 24 hours two big cats of India slipped into man made wells at different locations.

The first incident was reported from Chameli Forest are of Maharashtra, western India.

The tiger, a full grown adult around four years old, fell into the 40-feet-deep dry well, which was not protected by a wall. The tiger was probably chasing some prey and must have accidentally fallen into the well around dawn today. It spent around ten hours in the well without food or water.

The frightened Tiger in the well

The animal’s plight was detected almost five hours later when some tribals and forest officials heard its roar and alerted police and wildlife officials, who then mounted a rescue operation. The tiger was first tranquilized and then taken out of the 40 feet deep well. It took more than three hours for the authorities to complete the operation. Later the Big Cat was released to wild.

In another similar incident reported from central India, a one-and-a-half year-old leopard was Tuesday extricated from a well in after a six-hour rescue operation.

Villagers of Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh first heard roars of the Leopard in a well situated in the fields. They informed the forest department. The intital efforts from the villagers to rescue it failed.

Angry Leopard in Well

Later, the forest department workers used a cage and successfully took out the leopard from the well.  The leopard would be released in the Dewas forest area after a medical check-up.

These are not only the first reports of big cats falling into human structures. There are frequent reports of such incidents from all corners of India.

On Sep 6, 2010, a Leopard was rescued from a well by locals in Udupi, south India.

On March, 2009, an adult Leopard was rescued from Guwahati, eastern part of India.

These reports imply the shrinking habitat of these big cats.

In fact the sighting of tiger in that area surprised the authorities. The area  never reported a sighting in the past many years since it is not a thick forest region. This says how far the rare animal travelled into human settlements, where it is never safe!

A rare image of a photo-trapped complete Tiger family in Kaziranga National Park, India.

Rare Photo of Tiger Family

The Family consists of two cubs, father and mother. On the left is the Tigress and facing the trap camera is the Tiger, other two are the cubs.

In a recent reports release by Aaranyak, a premier biodiversity conservation organization of Assam, India states that Kaziranga has the highest density tiger habitats in the country and has a healthy breeding source population. According to the survey spanning over three years based on camera-trapped technique, the National Park  has over 118 tigers, includes six tigers which died during the monitoring period.

The largest of all the “big cats” in the jungle, the Tiger has been the symbol of power and strength in the human civilization across the planet. But the KING of the jungle is facing severe threat from human and in the verse of extinction.
The Scientific Name: Panthera Tigris

Where is it found?

Once widely spread across Asia, the Tiger has shrunk in size dangerously in recent times. Its estimated as only 7% of the former population is now surviving in the wild.
Once the tiger ranged from the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea to Siberia and Indonesia. During the 19th century, these cats completely vanished from western Asia, and became restricted to isolated pockets in the remaining parts of their range. Today, their range is fragmented, and extends from India in the west to China and Southeast Asia in the east. The northern limit is close to the Amur River in south eastern Siberia. The only large island inhabited by tigers today is Sumatra. Tigers vanished from Java and Bali during the 20th century, and in Borneo are known only from fossil remains.

How does it live?

Tigers are essentially solitary and territorial animals. The size of a tiger’s home range mainly depends on prey abundance, and, in the case of male tigers, on access to females. A tigress may have a territory of 20 square kilometers while the territories of males are much larger, covering 60–100 km2. The ranges of males tend to overlap those of several females.
In the wild, tigers mostly feed on larger and medium sized animals. Sambar, gaur, chital, barasingha, wild boar, nilgai and both water buffalo and domestic buffalo are the tiger’s favoured prey in India. Sometimes, they also prey on leopards, pythons, sloth bears and crocodiles. In Siberia the main prey species are manchurian wapiti, wild boar, sika deer, moose, roe deer, and musk deer.

Mating can occur all year round, but is generally more common between November and April. A female is only receptive for a few days and mating is frequent during that time period. A pair will copulate frequently and noisily, like other cats. The gestation period is 16 weeks. The litter size usually consists of around 3–4 cubs of about 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) each, which are born blind and helpless. The females rear them alone, sheltering them in dens such as thickets and rocky crevices. The father of the cubs generally takes no part in rearing them.

How does it look?

The size of the tiger varies from subspecies to subspecies. Siberian Tiger that is supposed to be the largest among all the subspecies, can grow 3.5 meter in length and more than 300 KG in weight. The males normally weigh 1.5 times more than the females. Similar to the size, the color alo depends upon the subspecies. Typically they have rusty-reddish to brown-rusty coats, a whitish medial and ventral area, a white \”fringe\” that surrounds the face, and stripes that vary from brown or gray to pure black. The form and density of stripes differs among subspecies.

The conflicts between human and big cats in India have been discussed and highlighted many times here. Despite many programs and money purred into this matter, the conflicts are getting in fact deeper with the ‘National Big Cat’ and the king of the jungle entering the scene. Yes, now its tiger that is directly confronting the human settlements in India creating panic in both wildlife lovers and common public.

The tigress that fell victim to AK-47 bulllets

During the last week of November, an adult tigress strayed out of the Kaziranga National Park of North-East India which is home to around 90 tigers.  The tigress created panic among the habitats living near by Kohora range of the National Park. The tigress not killed cattle of the villagers creating fear among all.

On 5th December, the tigress killed a pig of one villager and started eating in near by bush. It was witnessed by the villagers and informed the forest authority. The authority kept the tigress under notice and prepared to tranquilize the full grown tigress. While the villagers informed the police and also tried the flee it with crackers. The noise made the tigress nervous and cross the highway towards the other side of the jungle. In the mean time a team of Assam police also arrived at the location. The crowd created panic in the tigress too, and it started roaring. After sometime the tigress again came out and this time attacked one journalist and also one police personal armed with AK-47. He fired at the tigress on self defense. Injured with bullets, the tigress became weak and took a back step. But then another police personal fired at the tigress with his AK-47 and rained it with bullets. The tigress had no choice this time but to surrender to death.

Another sad incident! The death of the Royal bengal Tigress brought back peace into the locality among the panicking villagers. But the story shouldn’t have ended with 14 bullets inside a beautiful animal, in fact the National animal of India. The animal could have been saved with proper planning and with a little more effort. The bullets of an AK-47 should not be a solution or answer to the panic among the villagers.

This clearly proves how inadequate are the process in place to stop the human-animal conflict in the region. Its a now a grave matter, because after so much hype and money flown into the tiger projects, there are not sufficient actions are in place.

Hope as the “King of the Jungle” is involved now, the conflicts will get more attention. Unfortunately the poor villagers around the forests have suffered so much loss and more than that so many beautiful and precious animals have already lost their lives due to the negligence of a few authorities.

A real bad news for the wildlife fans. T5, popularly known as Kachida Female will no more be roaming in the wilderness of Ranthambore National Park, India. The injured Tigress was found dead yesterday by forest department. To add more grief to it, her death has orphaned just two three months old cubs.

Kachida Tigress’ two cubs were among the eight cubs located in last few months in the Ranthambore National park, which brought an air of joy to the park. But this beautiful tigress’ death has calmed down all the enthusiasm in the park.
State Tourism minister, Bina Kak, first disocvered a wound in the tigress while taking photgraphs. This act of the minister made all the wildlife conservationists happy. The tigress was tranquilised and hundreds of maggots infesting her wound were cleared. It was believed that this treatment would cure the Tigress. But the hope  didn’t come true.

The carcass of the tigress, aged around seven, was found in the Kachida area on Wednesday morning, though the death seemingly took place some 18 hours earlier.

“I am feeling very sad. They never told me about it being unwell or anything like that. I had told the officials to keep a round-the-clock watch on the tigress and its cubs. But now it appears that they kept misleading me about sighting it even when they had no trace of it,” said a visibly shocked Ms. Kak, who had extended her stay in Sawai Madhopur to oversee the treatment of the animal.

The death can be termed as Natural Death, but was proper care taken to the Tigress? Was it too late when the wound was discovered? That is the question from everyone, it should have been discovered by the authorities much before the minister who just a tourist.

The next important task lying in front of the authorities is to find the cubs and give proper care. We hope authorities will fail to find them soon, as they in danger due big males in the area.

We have collected some photos of the Tigress on her demise, in her memory.

Tigress T5 - Kachida Female Relaxing - courtesy nishith ajitsaria @ Flickr

Kachida Tigress in the Bush - Phot Courtesy Rahul.Mehrotra

The Tigress Resting - Photo Courtesy Sarvesh Kumar Sharma @indianaturewatch.net

In the Wildneness of Ranthambore - Photo Courtesy Nishith ajitsaria @ Flickr

Kachida Tigress - Photo Courtesy thehindu.com

The Treatment that never helped - Photo Courtesy @ndtv.com

Ranthambore National Park of India has a great 2011 start with the news of 9 tiger cub births.

Ranthambore, which is one of the largest National Park of India, is widely known for its Tigers. The Sanctuary was one of the initial reserved area to come under Indian Governments ‘Project Tiger’ in 1973. In 80s the park saw increase of tiger population slowly reaching 44 in 1989. But this critically endangered species saw a decline of population in 90s and later. The main reason for the population decline is attributed to poaching and habitat loss. In 2005 the official survey reveals only 24 tiger in the park. With tremendous efforts from wildlife activists and forest department, the population again soared to around 34 in 2008. According to the census conducted in the core division in 2009, revealed there were 14 males, 16 females and 10 cubs.

Tigress with Cubs at Ranthambore

But 2010 brought no good news for Tigers in Ranthambore with around 10 tiger lives lost. Due to tiger population growth and habitat shrinking, there were fierce competition among the tigers for food and territory. Apart from deaths due to fights, a few of them found staryed away from the National park. Adding worse to the scenario, in March 2010, two tiger cubs were poisoned by local villagers!

Though 2010 was not a very good year, 2011 brings really joy to the Ranthambore National park with news of nearly 9 or more new born cubs.

A trap camera caught three cubs recently in the Indala region of the park. Though the news of the birth of the cubs at the Indala region came sometime back, forest officials could not confirm it as pictures were not available. According to Rajpal Singh, member of the state wildlife board, the Indala tigress was the same one that gave birth to three cubs in 2006. Unfortunately, none of those survived.

Since last September, five cubs have been caught on camera while forest guards spotted two more tigress which are said to be lactating, park sources said.

However, sources said that there are four more cubs have been spotted in separate areas in the park. These four cubs are in two separate areas of the park. But there is no official confirmation on them as of now.

We hope this time the cubs will grow up with good health and authorities will take proper measure for this increasing population.

The Tiger, King of the Jungle, may be the Mascot of the CommonWealth Games currently on play in Delhi, India, but there is real sad news from real Tiger world in the country. Bannerghatta National Park of Bangalore is artifficial home to tens of tigers. But recently most of the big cats in the park were infected with unknown bacteria causing Typhoid like disease. Last month, there were reports of four tiger deaths. Out of these four, two claimed by old age, but rest two were untimely and caused by the infection. The infection spread across as many as 16 tigers. Unfortunately despite doctors all efforts, one more four year tiger, Minchu, died on 5th of October bringing more sorrow to the park.

“The four-year-old tiger Minchu died this morning due to kidney failure though it was recovering from the typhoid causing bacteria. It seems to have succumbed to toxic remnants in the kidney,” said zoo assistant director B.C. Chittiappa. Minchu was kept in isolation to prevent its infection from spreading to other 41 tigers, including 15 of them under treatment for the dreaded bacteria in the zoo. The rest of infected tigers are showing recovery, are still kept in strict observation and isolation.

Tiger is not only the national animal of the country India but also it has attracted attention recently for massive campaigns going on to save the species. It is very unfortunate to lose so many lives during such a short span when their total number in the country stands at just above 1000. We wish quick recovery of rest of the rare big cats in the Park.