Week 2 The weekends in Masai Mara were “rest days” for us. One of our groups would leave on the Saturday and the next one would come to the camp either on Sunday evening or on Monday evening. They were great days as we had the camp all to ourselves. On Saturday mornings I would…
My wife, Poonam, and I were fortunate to spend five weeks in Masai Mara during the annual Wildebeest migration this year. We were there last year for two weeks and came back convinced that two weeks were not enough. It took us a year to plan a five-week trip for five groups of photographers and…
9th April 2011. In the morning safari some jeeps saw a pair of tigers walking form zone 1 of the Ranthambhore national park towards the Kalapani anicut in Zone 6. In the evening I booked a jeep for zone 6 and we found the mating tigers (T24 male and T39 female – both young adults)…
A Little Bittern (Ixobrychus minutus) was sighted and photographed for the first time in the plains of India. A keen birder from Delhi Wing Commander Vijay Sethi photographed it on the 22nd and 23rd May 2010. He found the bird near Malik Talao in the heart of the park. He was accompanied by local naturalist…
At around 1000 hours in the morning the Deputy Field Director of Ranthambhore national park (RS Shekhawat) called me and asked me to reach the Tadla chowki (or Forest Guard House) near Banas river as soon as possible, along with MD Parasher. He told me that the two “Chiroli cubs” were dead, probably poisoned and…
A few days ago I read the following news in the Times of India, one of India’s leading daily newspaper. It goes like this: Tigers will now roar at Darrah JAIPUR: After Ranthambore and Sariska, Darrah. Rajasthan is all set to get its third tiger reserve, and India its 39th, very soon. The National Tiger…
Wildlife is on the brink by PANKAJ SEKHSARIA Wildlife is on the brink and it is high time we took a critical look at our conservation realities and policies. Most that share landscapes with wildlife, for instance, live extremely low impact lives yet they pay the biggest cost for conservation. Question of survival: Tribal settlements…
Interesting email exchange between Deepali and your truly. Deepali is a naturalist, photographer and economist from Delhi. I got her permission to share this on the blog. From: Deepali Sharma Sanwal Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 11:11:25 +0530 To: Aditya Singh Subject: hi from Delhi Hi Aditya Hello from Delhi. Read your blog.. wanted to…
On the 24th of April 2009, Machali (Ranthambhore’s most famous tigress) and B2 (Bandhavgarh’s most famous tiger) were given a “life time achievement award” by TOFT in Delhi. TOFT or Travel Operators for Tigers is a pressure group of Travel Operators (http://www.toftindia.org/index.php), Destination management companies and Accommodation providers who aim to make wildlife tourism in…
Here is an article that I wrote for the Sanctuary magazine: A few weeks ago, I received a scathing response from a ‘tiger activist’ friend to an article I had posted online about the conservation value of tourism. After blasting my views, he finally stated that what tigers really need is “isolation from the forest…