Do humans taste awful?
Do we have less meat?
Have we been ousted from genetic coding of the tiger's food habits?
The last question seems more of a plausible answer.
This Story: Is probably repeated but this time with a twist.
Having lost a wonderful sighting of Chota Munna somewhere in Kanha meadow we set our brains busy. We then began to encircle a mountain to reach a fire line that the big cat often frequented after crossing over the grasslands in the plains.
Two alarm calls made us stop a little ahead. And then we heard him. Thinking he would circumvent since there was no doubt that he knew of our presence and exactly.
Hence I stood up to take a peak over the tall grass and bush. We could hear him brush past the thickets...he had come closer. We were in the middle of the jungle road but in that silence, all seemed still except the massive tiger climbing uphill.
And then straight from the bushes, I could see the white patches peering at me. We were at a distance nevertheless fear engulfed me. I quietly sat down. Many times on safari the big cats emerge by surprise at a distance good enough to attack visitors. We reversed immediately to be at a safer distance. At our first sight, the big beast could have charged at us but the attack did not take place. As it does not almost always...
From that spot, the cat turned back only to emerge from an opening situated a little ahead. Without a glance at us, he began to ambush deer from time to time hungry as he was.
A lone tusker in muust could have charged, maybe we could have been charged if the animal was a wild water buffalo...
That made me think ...the massive tiger was hungry...yet he did not go after us... he would not have attacked a forester on foot in his kingdom. The staff patrols the whole forest on foot and two-wheeler every day without an incidence....
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| Anshuman Singh |
Man-killing is rare and is considered an aberration or an act of self-defense whence a surprise. It is evident tigers do not consider us as food till more stressful situations arise...As we say there is plenty of meat (prey) for the predators to survive.
In most, man-killing cases hunger drives invalidated tigers to kill humans but this is a cause. Else they prefer to stay away from us.
Possible another answer to this benevolence is that somehow we appear indomitable to the predator. The other answer could be that we have managed to stay away from the wild food chain for a long and that has cut us out of the system.
It is true that other life forms are fearful of this two-legged creature...and their intelligence warns them to stay away. Hence no animal attacks without provocation or fear.
All said and done we should respect wildlife and maintain a safe distance always.
