Tiger 24 (2022) Movie Script
I thought I was making
a documentary
on a tiger in the wild.
But on May 8th, 2015,
the tiger I was following
killed a man.
And my documentary became
about something bigger.
He's India's best known,
most famous,
or should I say infamous, tiger.
His name is Ustad, T-24.
The man that was killed
was Rampal Saini,
a forest guard.
He is survived by his wife,
Dholi Bai,
and his son, Mohan,
who was 17 years old
on the date of the attack.
The definition of
a man eater
is a tiger that kills
and eats people.
T-24 killed and ate two people.
The forest guards were scared
of doing any patrolling anymore,
and specially in T-- T-24,
Ustad's territory
they absolutely refused to do
any foot patrolling.
This animal must be picked up
and taken out,
and he will always
be a problem
because he now has
a memory implant
that this is food.
He was the pride
of Ranthambore,
but now is the biggest villain
of the national park.
We're talking about Ustad,
or T-24,
who was abruptly relocated
a few days ago
to a biological park
in Udaipur,
allegedly because he had turned
into a man killer.
Accused of killing four humans
in the last five years,
Ustad is now forced to live
in a small enclosure,
miles away from home.
When this
thing started,
I had no idea what I was doing.
So we're in Ranthambore,
Rajasthan.
It's May, um...
What is it? May 23rd, 2012?
It's, um, it's hot.
It's about 45 degree Celsius,
which I-- I think
is 110 Fahrenheit, I'm sure.
I was told to follow
a tigress with cubs
because those make for
the best tiger documentaries.
But then I saw
this young male, T-24.
Locally, he was known as Ustad,
which means... the Master.
How was I not gonna follow him?
He turned out to be the
dominant male of Ranthambore,
a 109-square-mile national park
in northwest India.
For the most part,
Ranthambore is Tiger paradise,
with its large water bodies,
ample prey,
and plenty of camouflage
in dry deciduous forest.
A former hunting ground
for the Maharajas of Jaipur,
today, wild tigers
are protected here.
In fact, you can see them
walking amongst the very relics
from which
they were once hunted.
Twenty percent of the habitat
is open for tourism.
Here, tigers are maniacally
pursued and celebrated.
Tiger tourism is big business
in Ranthambore,
earning millions
for hotel owners
and the Forest Department,
income which is put back
into conservation.
T-24's territory
was nearly 20 square miles.
It stretched all the way
towards the main road
from where pilgrims
and tourists enter the park
and towards a village
called the Old City.
I'd heard
that he'd killed people.
But at the time,
I chose to ignore the attacks.
I just wanted to follow him
in the wild.
He was kind of a super tiger,
handsome, powerful...
and he had a cool beard.
He weighed nearly 600 pounds,
huge, even for a Bengal tiger.
He also had a family.
This is Noor,
T-24's one and only
mating partner.
And you can see why.
She's pretty hot.
This is Sultan,
Noor's son through T-24.
He's pretty big, too,
for a one-year-old.
December 2013
was my first winter with T-24.
He seemed relaxed.
Only the flies bothered him.
But later he became annoyed
by the presence
of another tiger
who turned out to be Sultan,
now almost fully grown.
While Sultan is still allowed
in his father's territory,
coming close could be
interpreted as a challenge.
I think it was about the time
Sultan urinated himself
that he realized
he was in over his head
and his only choice
was to submit to his father.
T-24 was entirely capable
of killing his son,
but chose to spare him.
Pilgrims are allowed to walk
through T-24's territory
on certain days
to visit the Ganesh Temple.
Forest guards are on
full alert on these days.
This is not one of those days.
Basically, we've got,
we've got kids
walk-- walking literally
into the reserve
because it, there's a back road
that connects
to the-- the temple.
There's a big bunch
of commotion right now. Um...
You know, this is,
this is T-24's territory,
and he's gonna end up
killing someone
and, you know,
the tiger will be blamed.
In June 2014,
Noor was spotted
with her second litter.
T-24 was a father again.
Locals named the two male cubs
Gora and Kalua.
The cubs are now a year old.
They've grown rapidly
now that they're off milk
and eating meat, which both
parents provided plenty of.
Noor would acquire prey
traditionally,
patiently stalking,
ready to explode into
the immense effort required
in taking down
family-sized prey.
While T-24 would just show up
like an undefeated brawler,
usurping kills
from other predators.
T-24 is right behind me.
Behind him is a somber kill,
which is a-- a large deer,
and, um, it wasn't his kill.
He stole it from a-- a leopard.
The leopard killed it ahead.
He's dragged the kill
behind to this tree,
which is more secure for him.
Although the leopard
retreated and stayed retreated,
T-24 kept watch
over the kill all day
and into the night
without eating it.
It was only in the morning
that I realized
he was saving meat
for his family.
In spite of his generosity,
when T-24 wanted to eat,
he wanted his space.
If he seems like an abusive
father right now, think again.
However vicious he appears,
it was not a real threat
because he tolerated
all kinds of mischief,
like being swiped
in the face...
being forced to play...
and being woken
from an afternoon snooze.
The Shiva Temple is located
within T-24's territory.
Today is Lord Shiva's birthday.
Hundreds of pilgrims will walk
through T-24's territory
to visit the temple.
Just one mile away,
Noor has killed a bull
on the path to the Shiva Temple
and is sharing it
with her son Kalua.
This bull must have crossed
over from the grazing area.
The Forest Department
anticipates
that T-24 will join in
the feasting soon.
This is problematic
given T-24's history
and the incoming pilgrims.
To protect the pilgrims,
the Forest Department
decides to intervene.
When Noor and the cub
step away,
the forest guards
seize their opportunity.
The kill is moved
deeper into the core.
As invasive as this is,
the Forest Department
made a call
in the interest of preventing
potentially fatal
man-animal conflict.
Pilgrims were able to visit
the Shiva Temple
without incident
throughout the day.
[chanting in
Later in the afternoon,
Noor comes searching
for her bull kill
with her hungry cubs.
Losing a large kill
is a serious problem
for a tiger family.
When she locates the bull,
she's suspicious.
It's obvious, her kill has been
tampered with.
There will be no eating until
she assesses the situation
and hides her kill
from further interference.
The next morning,
T-24 locates the bull kill.
It was February 18th, 2015,
the last day I would see
T-24 in the wild.
Three months later,
he was removed
for the killing
of Rampal Saini,
which, according to
the Forest Department,
was T-24's fourth human kill.
My documentary
had become bigger
than just me and T-24.
Now the whole country
was involved.
This protest is to get T-24,
the tiger from Ranthambore,
popularly called Ustad, to get
him released from the zoo.
He has been taken out
of his natural habitat
and put in a zoo,
so we're talking about a tiger
who is used to 30, 40
square kilometers of area
now living in half-hectare
enclosure.
So you can imagine the life
that he's living today.
What would you do
if you were in your home
and somebody enters your home
and catches you by surprise?
If somebody comes to my house
and I kill him,
it's self-defense.
Our voice is falling
on deaf ears.
I'm sorry the forest officials
are thick-skinned,
corrupt, and inept.
The tiger is
our national animal.
We should be protecting it,
not threatening it,
not endangering it.
Please stop making man eaters
of our tigers.
In the early 1900s,
over 40,000 tigers
thrived in India's diverse
and pervasive forests.
By the late 1960s,
habitat destruction
and the so-called
royal sport of hunting
reduced tigers
to less than 2000
hiding in fragmented remnants
of a once sweeping
tiger habitat.
A record kill.
Ten feet, two inches
of stilled fury
and now a great trophy.
Nowhere else in the world
could this hunt
have taken place
and at so small a cost.
Yes, nowhere but India
can the big-game hunter
get so much for his money.
In 1972, the government
of India outlawed hunting.
A year later,
India's prime minister,
Indira Gandhi,
launched Project Tiger,
legally protecting the little
remaining tiger habitat
through the creation
of tiger reserves.
Forest guards were hired
to patrol these tiger reserves,
and whole villages were moved
outside the reserve perimeter.
The National Tiger
Conservation Authority,
or NTCA,
is a central government body
that supports Project Tiger
with legal backing.
Ranthambore is one
of fifty tiger reserves.
All these
tiger reserves combined
represent less than 2%
of the landmass of India.
According to the NTCA,
the tiger reserves
are to be made up
of a core and a buffer.
The core is supposed to be
exclusively for tigers,
where their well-being
is the priority.
It gives tigers a place
in the world,
a sacred place
that they can call their own.
The buffer is supposed
to separate the core
from the village.
Here, villagers are allowed
to bring in cattle for grazing
and pick firewood.
With Ranthambore--
Ranthambore Tiger Reserve,
when it was selected in 1974,
it was the smallest of all
the tiger reserves selected,
and it has no buffer.
It's like a little island
in the middle of a very busy
human population.
No buffer means
human activity
borders the tigers' home.
If you look at this
grazing area, for example,
it's only separated
by the main road.
And this is the road
where all the tourists go in,
where filmmakers like myself
go in to film tigers
inside the national park.
Here's some more cattle
walking to
another grazing area.
And then, there's this wall.
And behind this wall
is core area.
And this is the reality
of Ranthambore.
There is no buffer.
And when cattle stray in
from the gate,
they do get killed by tigers,
which is upsetting
to the villagers
who generate their livelihood
from cattle.
The core itself is compromised
in certain areas.
As we have seen,
Ranthambore allows villagers
to enter the core
for religious purposes.
T-24's particular territory
had the highest visitation
of pilgrims.
Rampal Saini was killed
in the core area.
But he had a right to be there
because he was a forest guard.
You don't wanna be
off-roading in the forest
because you will
either damage the forest,
or your jeep, or both.
So jeeps stay on the road
while forest guards
have to do their job on foot
in order to find poachers
and to properly ID tigers
as T-24, T-39,
T-72, etcetera.
We don't want a man eater
out there on the loose, right?
So it was very important
to ID the tiger,
which has not been done.
Nobody saw him clearly
when the incident happened,
and in the melee, all they
could say was it was a tiger.
Whether it was Sultan,
whether it was Ustad,
or Star Male,
who used to frequent
that area occasionally,
there was no positive ID made.
The area where Rampal Saini
was killed
was definitely
in T-24's territory.
Star Male never came there.
Star Male used to come
to another place,
but a kilometer away
from where Rampal was killed.
There probably 5% chance
whether it could be Star Male,
95% chance
that it had to be T-24.
T-24's oldest son
Sultan, was the prime suspect
in the immediate confusion
after the attack
and was labeled as
the killer tiger
in the first news reports.
I also heard
that it wasn't T-24.
Sultan was spotted
by a few tourist vehicles
who have seen and identified
Sultan there before.
And since Ustad and Sultan
were seen together,
they were, they were in
the same territory that time,
I have... The week before that
when I was in Ranthambore,
I've shot
both of them together.
Since Sultan and Ustad
were both seen together,
and if Sultan actually did
the killing and not Ustad,
and Ustad, since he was nearby,
he came, he's an animal,
he sniffed blood.
And he just happened to be
at the wrong place
at the wrong time.
If we get attacked,
just keep rolling, okay?
This is the exact spot
where Rampal was killed.
And that's the--
that's the road to the fort.
That's the road? Okay.
Whenever a tiger
comes along this main road
the guards
are deployed right away
because a lot of people
walk on this road.
We got one forest canter to park
about 100, 200 meters
down the road here.
Another forest jeep
to park about
200 meters down the road here.
- The other side, okay. Okay.
- Yeah, the other side.
They were parked in such a way
that they could see each other.
And then, the fourth forest jeep
parked there.
The idea was that we park these
four jeeps in such a way
that if a tiger
is still within this area
and he moves,
we'll surely see him.
We reached here, uh,
very close to, uh,
very close to the spot,
the moment we reached here
we saw the tiger come out
of behind this bush.
At that time,
there was some blood lying here
and a small part
of Rampal's skull.
He came, started sniffing
at the blood, licked it.
He looked up and we identified
him as T-24 right away.
There was a spot of blood
just here.
We actually, we drove the car
right up till here,
and we saw the T-24 come out,
when we first identified him.
- Yeah.
- He started snarling at us.
- So we drove back.
- Okay.
And then he
came up here,
licked this blood,
started looking around here,
all around, uh,
for good about 20 minutes
till it became pretty dark.
He's smelling for the...
This was a clear
stalk and hit.
Yeah, but tell me how
it's a clear stalk and hit.
Because a stalk and hit
is always from the back.
- Okay.
- An attack is from the front.
- Okay.
- Attack is from the front.
You mean
a chance-encounter attack.
Yeah, a chance-encounter
attack.
Defense attack will always be
from the front.
And an attack is noisy.
- Yeah.
- The tiger roars, screams.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- You know, it gets very loud.
Because
a chance-encounter attack
is basically the tiger's way
of telling you to get lost.
- Yeah.
- Or pushing you away from them.
- He's warning you.
- He's warning you.
- Yeah.
- This was silent.
Nobody heard it.
So here's what we know
about the May 8th, 2015,
attack.
At 6:00 p.m.,
forest guard Rampal Saini
goes into the forest alone
to verify a tiger
that was reported in the area.
He's 20 feet off the main road
into core tiger territory.
A tiger attacks Rampal.
This attack is either
a chance encounter
where the animal acted
in self-defense
or a stalk and hit
with the intention to kill
and eat Rampal.
Rampal falls to the ground,
and the tiger proceeds
to grab him by the neck.
Shankar Lal drives up
and slams his brakes
upon seeing the tiger.
The skidding of his car
causes the tiger to flee.
Forest guard Mundher rushes in
and drags bleeding Rampal
towards the road.
Forester Hukam Chand Meena
flags down a jeep.
They load Rampal into the jeep,
which speeds to the hospital
where Rampal
is pronounced dead.
The Forest Department,
along with Aditya Singh,
return to the scene
of the attack
at approximately 7 p.m.
to find a large male tiger
smelling and licking
the still-wet blood
of Rampal Saini.
They positively identify
this tiger as Tiger Number 24
and take photographic evidence
to confirm their findings.
They use this evidence
to conclude
that T-24 was the killer tiger.
See, a tiger sniffing blood
on the road
does not implicate him
as the murderer.
You remember
this bull kill
from the opening of the film
and how this was actually
Noor's kill, not T-24's?
Here's T-24 looking
for that same bull kill
the next morning.
This is the same behavior
that the Forest Department
used to implicate T-24
as the tiger that killed
Rampal Saini.
Look at T-24
devouring this kill.
See how he drags it
like it is his kill,
how he wants to pull it
deeper into the bush,
further punctuating
that this must be his kill.
But we know
that it was not his kill.
To definitively ID T-24
as Rampal's killer
would require identification
at the moment of the attack.
Virtually impossible,
given that
it was a hit and run.
Or resort to technology.
We have technology
which can help.
Why wasn't it established
through forensic means?
Forensics are part of
the NTCA guidelines
for identifying
man-eating tigers.
I support forensics,
but we are living
in a country called India.
We are living
in a forest department
where you haven't given
even a uniform
to the forest guard properly.
Where every little thing,
including their ration,
what they do in the day
or the night,
has a big problem
attached to it.
Where people like myself
have worked 40 years
on government committees
to solve these problems
and have been unsuccessful
because we live in a world
of babus and bureaucrats
who don't know
how to govern, okay?
They take a hundred years
to solve little problems.
They don't solve them
in the same day.
Do you think that we haven't
fought for forensics
in every region, so you have
a hundred forensic labs
that you can deal with,
or you have
little areas
within the park itself?
But these are,
this is like, you know, saying,
"Oh, this is gonna be a miracle
if it happens."
We can't get the first A-B-C-D
of the alphabet to happen.
So should the public think
that forensics can happen?
In a country like India have you
driven in traffic in Delhi?
- Yeah, it's crazy, yeah.
- You know what a rule is?
What
is a traffic light?
Where is
the pedestrian crossing?
I mean, we give more and more
driving licenses.
Do you know that nobody takes
a test for a driving license?
Do you know that everybody out
there on the road is a killer?
Why don't the public at large
go and stop
the traffic regulations?
Why don't they say that
there should be safe traffic?
Do we do anything
in this country correctly?
And you want forensics
in a tiger forest?
Out there in boondocks?
Who's gonna bring it to you?
God?
So what you're saying is
ideally, yes--
Of course ideally yes.
Of course we...
I-- I've put it down
in recommendations 20 years ago,
but they don't come through.
This tiger, T-24, he did not
kill Rampal Saini.
It's not the tiger
which killed Rampal Saini.
It's the defunct system.
The law says that if you have
to translocate any animal,
specially if
it is a Schedule 1 animal
under the Wildlife
Protection Act,
Please seek the permission
of the Central Government,
which in this case would be
the National Tiger
Conservation Authority.
There was
no communication between
the chief wildlife warden
and the NTCA,
and I've confirmed that
personally.
If you were
the chief wildlife warden,
your field director, Sahu,
whoever it is,
says, "T-24 has killed
this guard.
We have determined this,"
you know,
"We want to move him,"
or whatever, you...
What is your move from there?
Do you call the NTCA?
- Do you write them a note?
- Yes.
You cannot
shift an animal,
as per the NTCA guidelines,
without the abject approval
of the NTCA.
- You have to have it on paper.
Yeah.
In this particular case,
I'm told that the approval
was taken later on
after the tiger
was moved to, uh, the zoo.
NTCA has the mandate
to provide guidelines,
norms for tiger conservation.
So if you've created a certain
guideline for translocation,
for example, or to declare
a big cat as a man-eater,
then you're supposed to ensure
that the state governments
follow those guidelines,
follow those norms,
follow those protocols.
Unfortunately,
in this particular case,
none of that happened.
On May 28th, 2015,
Chandrabhal Singh
was set to present his case
to return T-24 to the wild.
The High Court
dismissed Chandrabhal's case.
They stated that
the removal of T-24
was "A decision
taken by Forest Officials
who are experts in wild life
and tiger management."
And was based on T-24's
successive killings,
Rampal Saini
being the fourth victim.
The High Court's dismissal
implied that T-24
was a man-eating tiger.
All the four incidents happened
in the core area of the forest,
and not a single incident
it happened
in the human settlement.
So how can we call
this tiger a man eater?
Him being taken out
of his territory
by wrongful and inconclusive
evidence is not correct.
Without him, his two cubs
are vulnerable to another
male tiger attack.
If T-24 is not there,
that puts Noor, T-39,
at a bigger risk.
I'm not worried about,
uh, you know, the cubs.
The first in the line of fire
is the T-39.
To defend her cub, she's gonna
be at the greater risk.
Okay, it's June 10th,
6:00 p.m.
Um, and it's raining, obviously.
Um, it's my first time
in Ranthambore
uh, without T-24 in the reserve,
and I'm a little concerned
that it's raining.
T-24's scent markings,
um, from his scent glands
and his urine sprays,
all those kinds of markings
are now going to lose any value
because of the rain.
They're gonna be
literally washed away.
And this is problematic
for T-39,
also known as Noor,
who is his mating partner,
um, and the two, the cubs
who are just over a year old,
because other males
are much more likely
to come into his territory now,
given that, um, his scent
has gone away.
The rain cleared,
and I located Gora,
now nearly his mother's size,
but clearly in distress
because he could not find her.
Gora's brother, Kalua,
was dealing
with the stress of tourists
blocking his path
and flashing their cameras
as he tried to cross the road
to return
to his parents' territory,
presumably also looking
for his mother, Noor,
and his father, T-24.
When I finally found Noor,
she seemed to be
intensively disturbed.
She appeared to be looking for
and calling for T-24,
but did not get a call back.
After weeks of looking,
she encounters a male
inside T-24's territory.
But it is not her king.
It is a new male, T-57.
And once he locked in on her,
he stayed on her relentlessly.
Eventually, Noor submits
to the new male.
The cubs flee up north,
never to be seen again.
T-57 has now taken over
T-24's territory
and his mating partner.
Her name...
- Her name is Dholi Bai.
Dholi Bai.
Dholi means...
Dholi means white.
On June 16th, 2015,
the National Tiger
Conservation Authority
issues an appraisal report
on the removal of T-24
from Ranthambore Tiger Reserve.
"There were
considerable time periods
between the attacks
involving T-24
on human beings
in its territory.
However, for the rest
of the period over the year,
the said tiger was living
on a natural-prey base
in the territory.
It may also be observed
that in all the incidences,
the human being
went very close to the tiger
in-- in-- in its territory,
paving way
for chance encounters
within the fight-or-flight
distance of the animal."
So this report categorically
and clearly says
that this tiger
was not a man eater.
In Ranthambore,
T-24 was a man eater.
Just the fact that he had eaten
one body nearly completely,
he is a man eater.
And anyone from NTCA
or NTCA's parent organization,
or the ministry, or anyone
in the Forest Department,
or anyone from anywhere
who says different,
has no knowledge about tigers.
I'm not prepared to discuss it
further in terms of the fact
that I don't waste my time on
people who don't have knowledge,
whether they are in government
or out of government.
It would be ridiculous for
anyone to come to Ranthambore
from any part and say
that T-24 was not a man eater,
because that person
has not done his homework
and shouldn't be in the job
that they are in.
These are advisories,
they wake up in the morning
and write advisories.
No state government will allow
the federal government
to rule them on this.
Looking after tigers
is a state subject.
They transfer
the forest officers,
they manage the parks,
they take on all the problems.
They're not going to listen
to little paper tigers
that are sent by the NTCA.
See, I-- I don't know
enough science about tigers,
but I think if science
still allows the ti-- tiger
to be rehabilitated
in an alternative habitat
because the law says
alternative suitable habitat,
which is definitely not a zoo.
If-- if science can still permit
the tiger
to roam around freely
in a suitable habitat,
whether it is back to
Ranthambore or portions of it,
or adjoining it,
I think it should go... still.
And I think the NTCA
is well within their right
to convince them
that that's a better option
for the life of the tiger,
rather than keeping them in zoo.
And I have full faith in the
judiciary that sooner or later,
the voice of this animal
will be heard.
Armed
with the new information
from the NTCA report,
Chandrabhal Singh
refiled his case
to return T-24 to the wild.
To make your own judgment
on T-24,
you have to go back
to his previous attacks
and to the 2009 treatment
of his paw injury.
In April 2009,
T-24 was seen limping
due to a festering
puncture wound from a thorn.
He was tranquilized
for treatment in the wild.
The injured paw was cleaned
and antibiotics
were administered.
Ice blocks were used to manage
the inflammation.
While unconscious,
a radio collar was attached
so that T-24
could be monitored.
I'm convinced that T-24's
dangerous attitude
towards human beings
started with that first incident
of a badly managed
radio-collaring operation.
I've watched radio collaring
in my life.
I've seen tigers
being radio collared,
but in half an hour
they're up and gone.
This was ridiculous.
- And therefore...
- It was two days.
The two days
somebody should have been
held accountable and answerable.
- Well, he had the paw thing.
- Why?
They argue that
he would have died.
Would've been... Would it have
been better for the--
Let him-- let him die.
It's not your business.
You're not playing God
to the tiger.
We are not God to the tiger.
We are just human beings.
We are observers
of a natural world
which we know so much about.
I've spent 40 years
watching tigers,
I've probably seen more tigers
and spent more time with tigers
than anyone today in the world,
but I'm still learning.
Whereas all these new young
scientists and forest officers
who are posted
think that they know the answer.
You never know the answer.
You have to have the humility
to understand an animal
and the humility not to
interfere in it and let it be.
- Yeah. Right.
- If it has to die, it will die.
And another will come
in its place.
That's what the natural world
is about.
- Okay.
- Let's not interfere with it.
So they interfered
with the natural world.
Dr. Rajeev Garg
believes
that his 48-hour treatment
of T-24's paw injury
had nothing to do
with T-24's attacks on humans.
Instead, Garg insists that T-24
had lost his fear of humans
due to their invasion
into his territory.
Would you call him
a man eater or a--
Okay.
Okay.
Ghamandi? Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
The animal attacked Ghamandi.
Okay.
Right.
Okay.
Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So you saw T-24
on Ghamandi's body?
Yeah.
-Grandmother.
-Yes.
Grandmother.
- Your mother? Okay.
- Ah, yeah, mother.
Hello. Hello.
Hello, how are you?
Okay, okay, okay.
Ghamandi's brother.
Hi, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
How are you? Mm.
This is the main road
at 6:00 a.m.
Behind the wall
you see on the left
is the edge of T-24's
territory.
Just inside
and outside the wall,
villagers wash
and relieve themselves.
To defecate, they go in deeper
into the core
with bottles of water
to clean themselves after.
This is illegal and dangerous,
but most days
they will not see a tiger,
let alone
have a deadly encounter.
According to Ghamandi's father,
this is exactly
what his son was doing
the morning he was killed
by T-24.
Legally, the Forest Department
was not obligated
to provide any compensation
to Ghamandi's family
because he invaded
core tiger territory.
The $2000 compensation
was likely a goodwill gesture
because following the attack,
Ghamandi's family and friends
came close to mob violence.
Surprise...
Okay.
So what probably happened
is he came down here,
the tiger was here,
and then the argument is,
why did the tiger attack, right?
So it could be, yes,
this is a man-eating tiger.
This was a great opportunity.
Or, two, that the tiger
was surprised
and this was
like a chance encounter
and that's why he was killed.
Ashfaq was supposedly down here
because the wood that's down
here is better wood for cutting,
and because there's, like,
you know, Ficus leaves.
That's-- that's
the official report.
Okay, now if you look
over there,
there's actually--
there's actually some locals.
Okay, the-- the guard is getting
really frustrated with me,
but I just want to, like,
see what these guys did.
So-- so this is-- this is,
um, the leaves
that-- that Ashfaq was, was
going to get for these goats.
I just came from the village
down over here.
Uh, this is where Ashfaq
used to live
and now right behind me,
there's-- there's
grazing cattle coming down
along with the cattle herders.
They're right up over there,
the guy's wearing a red shirt
and the yellow shirt,
they're-- they're coming down.
And you can see that
this invasion
into the core
is still happening.
This is the sort of the,
the edge of the core,
because from here, it's this
village right after that.
And this is just the reality
right now of Ranthambore.
There isn't this sort of
ideal situation
where there's this core,
then there's this buffer,
and then, after that,
there's the village.
In many areas, there's core,
and then there's village.
Beyond all the need
for livelihood, beyond all,
you know, "I gotta collect wood
for, you know, my family
and leaves for my goats and all
that," it's-- it's kind of fun.
I mean, it's actually kind of
fun to-- to... It's freedom.
You know, I mean, it's-- it's
just was fun for me
to go up this hill
and sit over here.
It's just kind of a cool place
to hang out.
That's probably
how this happened, you know?
Um, you know, if I'm Ashfaq,
I'm-- I'm do...
Every day, I'm going here for
a walk, I'm enjoying myself,
I'm-- I'm picking up leaves
for my goats,
I'm-- I'm cutting wood,
and this is what I do.
I see a tiger or a leopard
every once in a while
really far away,
and then, one day,
I run right into one,
and I get killed.
If a pilgrim
was killed, the potential
for a riot
would have been there.
Even, like, poisoning in
retaliation or something like--
Villagers have been
known to poison tigers,
burn the forest and
the Forest Department quarters
when they sense
that the Forest Department
has not protected them
from tiger attacks.
Although T-24's surgery
was successful,
his intestinal blockage
became a chronic issue.
I believe that it's 100%
due to the claustrophobic
and the constricted area
to which the tiger
has been confined.
That is causing all this.
Tiger is a-- is an animal...
Causing
the stomach problem?
Causing the stomach problem.
Over the next
two years, Chandrabhal Singh
continues to fight for T-24
through the legal system.
On May 28th, 2017,
after his review petition
gets dismissed,
he calls it quits.
Meanwhile, back in Ranthambore,
T-57 continues to rule over
T-24's territory
and over
his mating partner, Noor.
Through T-57,
Noor produces three cubs.
Life has moved on
in Ranthambore without T-24.
Right. One hectare in this case.
Yeah.
Right.
T-24 as one of the tigers
that I love,
but I love all tigers.
Once he started killing
human beings,
then he became a threat
to his own species.
Now, to protect the species,
with a heavy heart,
we had to agree
that we had to send him away.
It doesn't mean
that I stopped loving him.
And T-24 is one of the most
beautiful specimens
of a male tiger.
I mean, I may partly
be in love with T-24.
I've loved my moments with him,
but I also know
that you have to manage a park,
that you have to find a way
to deal with local people
and their problems,
forest guards who don't want
to patrol
because of this animal.
No. No.
Right.
So maybe there is
no good guy
or bad guy
in this T-24 tragedy.
Maybe that's life.
Maybe if you look deep enough,
there's dirt on everyone.
Each side cares about T-24,
but each side
wants to tear the other down.
Was T-24 a man eater?
That will always be
up for debate.
But there is no debate
that all the attacks
occurred within his territory
inside the core area,
which is designated
sacred space for tigers by law.
T-24 was ultimately removed
because the core area of tiger
reserves are compromised,
and these small
remaining wild areas
where tigers survive
are managed by departments
that must strike a balance
between the tiger's needs,
the needs of the forest staff,
their families,
and the villagers.
In order to prevent conflict
between tigers and humans,
we must provide safe solutions
for villagers
entering the little
remaining tiger habitat
while empowering forest staff
with safer
patrolling protocols.
Without these changes,
attacks on humans
will increase.
And with that,
an increasing number of tigers
will be removed from the wild
and put in zoos.
And this is a tragedy
for future generations
because there's nothing quite
as beautiful, inspirational,
and important
as a tiger in the wild.
People travel from all over
the world to India
to see the last wild tigers.
They admire them
and photograph them
as they would works of art.
To take tigers
away from the wild
will be to take a piece
of inspiration
away from the world.
To thrive, wild tigers
require large forest expanses.
This means that saving tigers
also saves the forests,
which in turn
fights climate change,
curbs soil erosion,
purifies water,
and maintains
species diversity.
If we can give tigers
a sacred place in the world,
we can make the world
a better place for all species,
including mankind.
a documentary
on a tiger in the wild.
But on May 8th, 2015,
the tiger I was following
killed a man.
And my documentary became
about something bigger.
He's India's best known,
most famous,
or should I say infamous, tiger.
His name is Ustad, T-24.
The man that was killed
was Rampal Saini,
a forest guard.
He is survived by his wife,
Dholi Bai,
and his son, Mohan,
who was 17 years old
on the date of the attack.
The definition of
a man eater
is a tiger that kills
and eats people.
T-24 killed and ate two people.
The forest guards were scared
of doing any patrolling anymore,
and specially in T-- T-24,
Ustad's territory
they absolutely refused to do
any foot patrolling.
This animal must be picked up
and taken out,
and he will always
be a problem
because he now has
a memory implant
that this is food.
He was the pride
of Ranthambore,
but now is the biggest villain
of the national park.
We're talking about Ustad,
or T-24,
who was abruptly relocated
a few days ago
to a biological park
in Udaipur,
allegedly because he had turned
into a man killer.
Accused of killing four humans
in the last five years,
Ustad is now forced to live
in a small enclosure,
miles away from home.
When this
thing started,
I had no idea what I was doing.
So we're in Ranthambore,
Rajasthan.
It's May, um...
What is it? May 23rd, 2012?
It's, um, it's hot.
It's about 45 degree Celsius,
which I-- I think
is 110 Fahrenheit, I'm sure.
I was told to follow
a tigress with cubs
because those make for
the best tiger documentaries.
But then I saw
this young male, T-24.
Locally, he was known as Ustad,
which means... the Master.
How was I not gonna follow him?
He turned out to be the
dominant male of Ranthambore,
a 109-square-mile national park
in northwest India.
For the most part,
Ranthambore is Tiger paradise,
with its large water bodies,
ample prey,
and plenty of camouflage
in dry deciduous forest.
A former hunting ground
for the Maharajas of Jaipur,
today, wild tigers
are protected here.
In fact, you can see them
walking amongst the very relics
from which
they were once hunted.
Twenty percent of the habitat
is open for tourism.
Here, tigers are maniacally
pursued and celebrated.
Tiger tourism is big business
in Ranthambore,
earning millions
for hotel owners
and the Forest Department,
income which is put back
into conservation.
T-24's territory
was nearly 20 square miles.
It stretched all the way
towards the main road
from where pilgrims
and tourists enter the park
and towards a village
called the Old City.
I'd heard
that he'd killed people.
But at the time,
I chose to ignore the attacks.
I just wanted to follow him
in the wild.
He was kind of a super tiger,
handsome, powerful...
and he had a cool beard.
He weighed nearly 600 pounds,
huge, even for a Bengal tiger.
He also had a family.
This is Noor,
T-24's one and only
mating partner.
And you can see why.
She's pretty hot.
This is Sultan,
Noor's son through T-24.
He's pretty big, too,
for a one-year-old.
December 2013
was my first winter with T-24.
He seemed relaxed.
Only the flies bothered him.
But later he became annoyed
by the presence
of another tiger
who turned out to be Sultan,
now almost fully grown.
While Sultan is still allowed
in his father's territory,
coming close could be
interpreted as a challenge.
I think it was about the time
Sultan urinated himself
that he realized
he was in over his head
and his only choice
was to submit to his father.
T-24 was entirely capable
of killing his son,
but chose to spare him.
Pilgrims are allowed to walk
through T-24's territory
on certain days
to visit the Ganesh Temple.
Forest guards are on
full alert on these days.
This is not one of those days.
Basically, we've got,
we've got kids
walk-- walking literally
into the reserve
because it, there's a back road
that connects
to the-- the temple.
There's a big bunch
of commotion right now. Um...
You know, this is,
this is T-24's territory,
and he's gonna end up
killing someone
and, you know,
the tiger will be blamed.
In June 2014,
Noor was spotted
with her second litter.
T-24 was a father again.
Locals named the two male cubs
Gora and Kalua.
The cubs are now a year old.
They've grown rapidly
now that they're off milk
and eating meat, which both
parents provided plenty of.
Noor would acquire prey
traditionally,
patiently stalking,
ready to explode into
the immense effort required
in taking down
family-sized prey.
While T-24 would just show up
like an undefeated brawler,
usurping kills
from other predators.
T-24 is right behind me.
Behind him is a somber kill,
which is a-- a large deer,
and, um, it wasn't his kill.
He stole it from a-- a leopard.
The leopard killed it ahead.
He's dragged the kill
behind to this tree,
which is more secure for him.
Although the leopard
retreated and stayed retreated,
T-24 kept watch
over the kill all day
and into the night
without eating it.
It was only in the morning
that I realized
he was saving meat
for his family.
In spite of his generosity,
when T-24 wanted to eat,
he wanted his space.
If he seems like an abusive
father right now, think again.
However vicious he appears,
it was not a real threat
because he tolerated
all kinds of mischief,
like being swiped
in the face...
being forced to play...
and being woken
from an afternoon snooze.
The Shiva Temple is located
within T-24's territory.
Today is Lord Shiva's birthday.
Hundreds of pilgrims will walk
through T-24's territory
to visit the temple.
Just one mile away,
Noor has killed a bull
on the path to the Shiva Temple
and is sharing it
with her son Kalua.
This bull must have crossed
over from the grazing area.
The Forest Department
anticipates
that T-24 will join in
the feasting soon.
This is problematic
given T-24's history
and the incoming pilgrims.
To protect the pilgrims,
the Forest Department
decides to intervene.
When Noor and the cub
step away,
the forest guards
seize their opportunity.
The kill is moved
deeper into the core.
As invasive as this is,
the Forest Department
made a call
in the interest of preventing
potentially fatal
man-animal conflict.
Pilgrims were able to visit
the Shiva Temple
without incident
throughout the day.
[chanting in
Later in the afternoon,
Noor comes searching
for her bull kill
with her hungry cubs.
Losing a large kill
is a serious problem
for a tiger family.
When she locates the bull,
she's suspicious.
It's obvious, her kill has been
tampered with.
There will be no eating until
she assesses the situation
and hides her kill
from further interference.
The next morning,
T-24 locates the bull kill.
It was February 18th, 2015,
the last day I would see
T-24 in the wild.
Three months later,
he was removed
for the killing
of Rampal Saini,
which, according to
the Forest Department,
was T-24's fourth human kill.
My documentary
had become bigger
than just me and T-24.
Now the whole country
was involved.
This protest is to get T-24,
the tiger from Ranthambore,
popularly called Ustad, to get
him released from the zoo.
He has been taken out
of his natural habitat
and put in a zoo,
so we're talking about a tiger
who is used to 30, 40
square kilometers of area
now living in half-hectare
enclosure.
So you can imagine the life
that he's living today.
What would you do
if you were in your home
and somebody enters your home
and catches you by surprise?
If somebody comes to my house
and I kill him,
it's self-defense.
Our voice is falling
on deaf ears.
I'm sorry the forest officials
are thick-skinned,
corrupt, and inept.
The tiger is
our national animal.
We should be protecting it,
not threatening it,
not endangering it.
Please stop making man eaters
of our tigers.
In the early 1900s,
over 40,000 tigers
thrived in India's diverse
and pervasive forests.
By the late 1960s,
habitat destruction
and the so-called
royal sport of hunting
reduced tigers
to less than 2000
hiding in fragmented remnants
of a once sweeping
tiger habitat.
A record kill.
Ten feet, two inches
of stilled fury
and now a great trophy.
Nowhere else in the world
could this hunt
have taken place
and at so small a cost.
Yes, nowhere but India
can the big-game hunter
get so much for his money.
In 1972, the government
of India outlawed hunting.
A year later,
India's prime minister,
Indira Gandhi,
launched Project Tiger,
legally protecting the little
remaining tiger habitat
through the creation
of tiger reserves.
Forest guards were hired
to patrol these tiger reserves,
and whole villages were moved
outside the reserve perimeter.
The National Tiger
Conservation Authority,
or NTCA,
is a central government body
that supports Project Tiger
with legal backing.
Ranthambore is one
of fifty tiger reserves.
All these
tiger reserves combined
represent less than 2%
of the landmass of India.
According to the NTCA,
the tiger reserves
are to be made up
of a core and a buffer.
The core is supposed to be
exclusively for tigers,
where their well-being
is the priority.
It gives tigers a place
in the world,
a sacred place
that they can call their own.
The buffer is supposed
to separate the core
from the village.
Here, villagers are allowed
to bring in cattle for grazing
and pick firewood.
With Ranthambore--
Ranthambore Tiger Reserve,
when it was selected in 1974,
it was the smallest of all
the tiger reserves selected,
and it has no buffer.
It's like a little island
in the middle of a very busy
human population.
No buffer means
human activity
borders the tigers' home.
If you look at this
grazing area, for example,
it's only separated
by the main road.
And this is the road
where all the tourists go in,
where filmmakers like myself
go in to film tigers
inside the national park.
Here's some more cattle
walking to
another grazing area.
And then, there's this wall.
And behind this wall
is core area.
And this is the reality
of Ranthambore.
There is no buffer.
And when cattle stray in
from the gate,
they do get killed by tigers,
which is upsetting
to the villagers
who generate their livelihood
from cattle.
The core itself is compromised
in certain areas.
As we have seen,
Ranthambore allows villagers
to enter the core
for religious purposes.
T-24's particular territory
had the highest visitation
of pilgrims.
Rampal Saini was killed
in the core area.
But he had a right to be there
because he was a forest guard.
You don't wanna be
off-roading in the forest
because you will
either damage the forest,
or your jeep, or both.
So jeeps stay on the road
while forest guards
have to do their job on foot
in order to find poachers
and to properly ID tigers
as T-24, T-39,
T-72, etcetera.
We don't want a man eater
out there on the loose, right?
So it was very important
to ID the tiger,
which has not been done.
Nobody saw him clearly
when the incident happened,
and in the melee, all they
could say was it was a tiger.
Whether it was Sultan,
whether it was Ustad,
or Star Male,
who used to frequent
that area occasionally,
there was no positive ID made.
The area where Rampal Saini
was killed
was definitely
in T-24's territory.
Star Male never came there.
Star Male used to come
to another place,
but a kilometer away
from where Rampal was killed.
There probably 5% chance
whether it could be Star Male,
95% chance
that it had to be T-24.
T-24's oldest son
Sultan, was the prime suspect
in the immediate confusion
after the attack
and was labeled as
the killer tiger
in the first news reports.
I also heard
that it wasn't T-24.
Sultan was spotted
by a few tourist vehicles
who have seen and identified
Sultan there before.
And since Ustad and Sultan
were seen together,
they were, they were in
the same territory that time,
I have... The week before that
when I was in Ranthambore,
I've shot
both of them together.
Since Sultan and Ustad
were both seen together,
and if Sultan actually did
the killing and not Ustad,
and Ustad, since he was nearby,
he came, he's an animal,
he sniffed blood.
And he just happened to be
at the wrong place
at the wrong time.
If we get attacked,
just keep rolling, okay?
This is the exact spot
where Rampal was killed.
And that's the--
that's the road to the fort.
That's the road? Okay.
Whenever a tiger
comes along this main road
the guards
are deployed right away
because a lot of people
walk on this road.
We got one forest canter to park
about 100, 200 meters
down the road here.
Another forest jeep
to park about
200 meters down the road here.
- The other side, okay. Okay.
- Yeah, the other side.
They were parked in such a way
that they could see each other.
And then, the fourth forest jeep
parked there.
The idea was that we park these
four jeeps in such a way
that if a tiger
is still within this area
and he moves,
we'll surely see him.
We reached here, uh,
very close to, uh,
very close to the spot,
the moment we reached here
we saw the tiger come out
of behind this bush.
At that time,
there was some blood lying here
and a small part
of Rampal's skull.
He came, started sniffing
at the blood, licked it.
He looked up and we identified
him as T-24 right away.
There was a spot of blood
just here.
We actually, we drove the car
right up till here,
and we saw the T-24 come out,
when we first identified him.
- Yeah.
- He started snarling at us.
- So we drove back.
- Okay.
And then he
came up here,
licked this blood,
started looking around here,
all around, uh,
for good about 20 minutes
till it became pretty dark.
He's smelling for the...
This was a clear
stalk and hit.
Yeah, but tell me how
it's a clear stalk and hit.
Because a stalk and hit
is always from the back.
- Okay.
- An attack is from the front.
- Okay.
- Attack is from the front.
You mean
a chance-encounter attack.
Yeah, a chance-encounter
attack.
Defense attack will always be
from the front.
And an attack is noisy.
- Yeah.
- The tiger roars, screams.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- You know, it gets very loud.
Because
a chance-encounter attack
is basically the tiger's way
of telling you to get lost.
- Yeah.
- Or pushing you away from them.
- He's warning you.
- He's warning you.
- Yeah.
- This was silent.
Nobody heard it.
So here's what we know
about the May 8th, 2015,
attack.
At 6:00 p.m.,
forest guard Rampal Saini
goes into the forest alone
to verify a tiger
that was reported in the area.
He's 20 feet off the main road
into core tiger territory.
A tiger attacks Rampal.
This attack is either
a chance encounter
where the animal acted
in self-defense
or a stalk and hit
with the intention to kill
and eat Rampal.
Rampal falls to the ground,
and the tiger proceeds
to grab him by the neck.
Shankar Lal drives up
and slams his brakes
upon seeing the tiger.
The skidding of his car
causes the tiger to flee.
Forest guard Mundher rushes in
and drags bleeding Rampal
towards the road.
Forester Hukam Chand Meena
flags down a jeep.
They load Rampal into the jeep,
which speeds to the hospital
where Rampal
is pronounced dead.
The Forest Department,
along with Aditya Singh,
return to the scene
of the attack
at approximately 7 p.m.
to find a large male tiger
smelling and licking
the still-wet blood
of Rampal Saini.
They positively identify
this tiger as Tiger Number 24
and take photographic evidence
to confirm their findings.
They use this evidence
to conclude
that T-24 was the killer tiger.
See, a tiger sniffing blood
on the road
does not implicate him
as the murderer.
You remember
this bull kill
from the opening of the film
and how this was actually
Noor's kill, not T-24's?
Here's T-24 looking
for that same bull kill
the next morning.
This is the same behavior
that the Forest Department
used to implicate T-24
as the tiger that killed
Rampal Saini.
Look at T-24
devouring this kill.
See how he drags it
like it is his kill,
how he wants to pull it
deeper into the bush,
further punctuating
that this must be his kill.
But we know
that it was not his kill.
To definitively ID T-24
as Rampal's killer
would require identification
at the moment of the attack.
Virtually impossible,
given that
it was a hit and run.
Or resort to technology.
We have technology
which can help.
Why wasn't it established
through forensic means?
Forensics are part of
the NTCA guidelines
for identifying
man-eating tigers.
I support forensics,
but we are living
in a country called India.
We are living
in a forest department
where you haven't given
even a uniform
to the forest guard properly.
Where every little thing,
including their ration,
what they do in the day
or the night,
has a big problem
attached to it.
Where people like myself
have worked 40 years
on government committees
to solve these problems
and have been unsuccessful
because we live in a world
of babus and bureaucrats
who don't know
how to govern, okay?
They take a hundred years
to solve little problems.
They don't solve them
in the same day.
Do you think that we haven't
fought for forensics
in every region, so you have
a hundred forensic labs
that you can deal with,
or you have
little areas
within the park itself?
But these are,
this is like, you know, saying,
"Oh, this is gonna be a miracle
if it happens."
We can't get the first A-B-C-D
of the alphabet to happen.
So should the public think
that forensics can happen?
In a country like India have you
driven in traffic in Delhi?
- Yeah, it's crazy, yeah.
- You know what a rule is?
What
is a traffic light?
Where is
the pedestrian crossing?
I mean, we give more and more
driving licenses.
Do you know that nobody takes
a test for a driving license?
Do you know that everybody out
there on the road is a killer?
Why don't the public at large
go and stop
the traffic regulations?
Why don't they say that
there should be safe traffic?
Do we do anything
in this country correctly?
And you want forensics
in a tiger forest?
Out there in boondocks?
Who's gonna bring it to you?
God?
So what you're saying is
ideally, yes--
Of course ideally yes.
Of course we...
I-- I've put it down
in recommendations 20 years ago,
but they don't come through.
This tiger, T-24, he did not
kill Rampal Saini.
It's not the tiger
which killed Rampal Saini.
It's the defunct system.
The law says that if you have
to translocate any animal,
specially if
it is a Schedule 1 animal
under the Wildlife
Protection Act,
Please seek the permission
of the Central Government,
which in this case would be
the National Tiger
Conservation Authority.
There was
no communication between
the chief wildlife warden
and the NTCA,
and I've confirmed that
personally.
If you were
the chief wildlife warden,
your field director, Sahu,
whoever it is,
says, "T-24 has killed
this guard.
We have determined this,"
you know,
"We want to move him,"
or whatever, you...
What is your move from there?
Do you call the NTCA?
- Do you write them a note?
- Yes.
You cannot
shift an animal,
as per the NTCA guidelines,
without the abject approval
of the NTCA.
- You have to have it on paper.
Yeah.
In this particular case,
I'm told that the approval
was taken later on
after the tiger
was moved to, uh, the zoo.
NTCA has the mandate
to provide guidelines,
norms for tiger conservation.
So if you've created a certain
guideline for translocation,
for example, or to declare
a big cat as a man-eater,
then you're supposed to ensure
that the state governments
follow those guidelines,
follow those norms,
follow those protocols.
Unfortunately,
in this particular case,
none of that happened.
On May 28th, 2015,
Chandrabhal Singh
was set to present his case
to return T-24 to the wild.
The High Court
dismissed Chandrabhal's case.
They stated that
the removal of T-24
was "A decision
taken by Forest Officials
who are experts in wild life
and tiger management."
And was based on T-24's
successive killings,
Rampal Saini
being the fourth victim.
The High Court's dismissal
implied that T-24
was a man-eating tiger.
All the four incidents happened
in the core area of the forest,
and not a single incident
it happened
in the human settlement.
So how can we call
this tiger a man eater?
Him being taken out
of his territory
by wrongful and inconclusive
evidence is not correct.
Without him, his two cubs
are vulnerable to another
male tiger attack.
If T-24 is not there,
that puts Noor, T-39,
at a bigger risk.
I'm not worried about,
uh, you know, the cubs.
The first in the line of fire
is the T-39.
To defend her cub, she's gonna
be at the greater risk.
Okay, it's June 10th,
6:00 p.m.
Um, and it's raining, obviously.
Um, it's my first time
in Ranthambore
uh, without T-24 in the reserve,
and I'm a little concerned
that it's raining.
T-24's scent markings,
um, from his scent glands
and his urine sprays,
all those kinds of markings
are now going to lose any value
because of the rain.
They're gonna be
literally washed away.
And this is problematic
for T-39,
also known as Noor,
who is his mating partner,
um, and the two, the cubs
who are just over a year old,
because other males
are much more likely
to come into his territory now,
given that, um, his scent
has gone away.
The rain cleared,
and I located Gora,
now nearly his mother's size,
but clearly in distress
because he could not find her.
Gora's brother, Kalua,
was dealing
with the stress of tourists
blocking his path
and flashing their cameras
as he tried to cross the road
to return
to his parents' territory,
presumably also looking
for his mother, Noor,
and his father, T-24.
When I finally found Noor,
she seemed to be
intensively disturbed.
She appeared to be looking for
and calling for T-24,
but did not get a call back.
After weeks of looking,
she encounters a male
inside T-24's territory.
But it is not her king.
It is a new male, T-57.
And once he locked in on her,
he stayed on her relentlessly.
Eventually, Noor submits
to the new male.
The cubs flee up north,
never to be seen again.
T-57 has now taken over
T-24's territory
and his mating partner.
Her name...
- Her name is Dholi Bai.
Dholi Bai.
Dholi means...
Dholi means white.
On June 16th, 2015,
the National Tiger
Conservation Authority
issues an appraisal report
on the removal of T-24
from Ranthambore Tiger Reserve.
"There were
considerable time periods
between the attacks
involving T-24
on human beings
in its territory.
However, for the rest
of the period over the year,
the said tiger was living
on a natural-prey base
in the territory.
It may also be observed
that in all the incidences,
the human being
went very close to the tiger
in-- in-- in its territory,
paving way
for chance encounters
within the fight-or-flight
distance of the animal."
So this report categorically
and clearly says
that this tiger
was not a man eater.
In Ranthambore,
T-24 was a man eater.
Just the fact that he had eaten
one body nearly completely,
he is a man eater.
And anyone from NTCA
or NTCA's parent organization,
or the ministry, or anyone
in the Forest Department,
or anyone from anywhere
who says different,
has no knowledge about tigers.
I'm not prepared to discuss it
further in terms of the fact
that I don't waste my time on
people who don't have knowledge,
whether they are in government
or out of government.
It would be ridiculous for
anyone to come to Ranthambore
from any part and say
that T-24 was not a man eater,
because that person
has not done his homework
and shouldn't be in the job
that they are in.
These are advisories,
they wake up in the morning
and write advisories.
No state government will allow
the federal government
to rule them on this.
Looking after tigers
is a state subject.
They transfer
the forest officers,
they manage the parks,
they take on all the problems.
They're not going to listen
to little paper tigers
that are sent by the NTCA.
See, I-- I don't know
enough science about tigers,
but I think if science
still allows the ti-- tiger
to be rehabilitated
in an alternative habitat
because the law says
alternative suitable habitat,
which is definitely not a zoo.
If-- if science can still permit
the tiger
to roam around freely
in a suitable habitat,
whether it is back to
Ranthambore or portions of it,
or adjoining it,
I think it should go... still.
And I think the NTCA
is well within their right
to convince them
that that's a better option
for the life of the tiger,
rather than keeping them in zoo.
And I have full faith in the
judiciary that sooner or later,
the voice of this animal
will be heard.
Armed
with the new information
from the NTCA report,
Chandrabhal Singh
refiled his case
to return T-24 to the wild.
To make your own judgment
on T-24,
you have to go back
to his previous attacks
and to the 2009 treatment
of his paw injury.
In April 2009,
T-24 was seen limping
due to a festering
puncture wound from a thorn.
He was tranquilized
for treatment in the wild.
The injured paw was cleaned
and antibiotics
were administered.
Ice blocks were used to manage
the inflammation.
While unconscious,
a radio collar was attached
so that T-24
could be monitored.
I'm convinced that T-24's
dangerous attitude
towards human beings
started with that first incident
of a badly managed
radio-collaring operation.
I've watched radio collaring
in my life.
I've seen tigers
being radio collared,
but in half an hour
they're up and gone.
This was ridiculous.
- And therefore...
- It was two days.
The two days
somebody should have been
held accountable and answerable.
- Well, he had the paw thing.
- Why?
They argue that
he would have died.
Would've been... Would it have
been better for the--
Let him-- let him die.
It's not your business.
You're not playing God
to the tiger.
We are not God to the tiger.
We are just human beings.
We are observers
of a natural world
which we know so much about.
I've spent 40 years
watching tigers,
I've probably seen more tigers
and spent more time with tigers
than anyone today in the world,
but I'm still learning.
Whereas all these new young
scientists and forest officers
who are posted
think that they know the answer.
You never know the answer.
You have to have the humility
to understand an animal
and the humility not to
interfere in it and let it be.
- Yeah. Right.
- If it has to die, it will die.
And another will come
in its place.
That's what the natural world
is about.
- Okay.
- Let's not interfere with it.
So they interfered
with the natural world.
Dr. Rajeev Garg
believes
that his 48-hour treatment
of T-24's paw injury
had nothing to do
with T-24's attacks on humans.
Instead, Garg insists that T-24
had lost his fear of humans
due to their invasion
into his territory.
Would you call him
a man eater or a--
Okay.
Okay.
Ghamandi? Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
The animal attacked Ghamandi.
Okay.
Right.
Okay.
Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So you saw T-24
on Ghamandi's body?
Yeah.
-Grandmother.
-Yes.
Grandmother.
- Your mother? Okay.
- Ah, yeah, mother.
Hello. Hello.
Hello, how are you?
Okay, okay, okay.
Ghamandi's brother.
Hi, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
How are you? Mm.
This is the main road
at 6:00 a.m.
Behind the wall
you see on the left
is the edge of T-24's
territory.
Just inside
and outside the wall,
villagers wash
and relieve themselves.
To defecate, they go in deeper
into the core
with bottles of water
to clean themselves after.
This is illegal and dangerous,
but most days
they will not see a tiger,
let alone
have a deadly encounter.
According to Ghamandi's father,
this is exactly
what his son was doing
the morning he was killed
by T-24.
Legally, the Forest Department
was not obligated
to provide any compensation
to Ghamandi's family
because he invaded
core tiger territory.
The $2000 compensation
was likely a goodwill gesture
because following the attack,
Ghamandi's family and friends
came close to mob violence.
Surprise...
Okay.
So what probably happened
is he came down here,
the tiger was here,
and then the argument is,
why did the tiger attack, right?
So it could be, yes,
this is a man-eating tiger.
This was a great opportunity.
Or, two, that the tiger
was surprised
and this was
like a chance encounter
and that's why he was killed.
Ashfaq was supposedly down here
because the wood that's down
here is better wood for cutting,
and because there's, like,
you know, Ficus leaves.
That's-- that's
the official report.
Okay, now if you look
over there,
there's actually--
there's actually some locals.
Okay, the-- the guard is getting
really frustrated with me,
but I just want to, like,
see what these guys did.
So-- so this is-- this is,
um, the leaves
that-- that Ashfaq was, was
going to get for these goats.
I just came from the village
down over here.
Uh, this is where Ashfaq
used to live
and now right behind me,
there's-- there's
grazing cattle coming down
along with the cattle herders.
They're right up over there,
the guy's wearing a red shirt
and the yellow shirt,
they're-- they're coming down.
And you can see that
this invasion
into the core
is still happening.
This is the sort of the,
the edge of the core,
because from here, it's this
village right after that.
And this is just the reality
right now of Ranthambore.
There isn't this sort of
ideal situation
where there's this core,
then there's this buffer,
and then, after that,
there's the village.
In many areas, there's core,
and then there's village.
Beyond all the need
for livelihood, beyond all,
you know, "I gotta collect wood
for, you know, my family
and leaves for my goats and all
that," it's-- it's kind of fun.
I mean, it's actually kind of
fun to-- to... It's freedom.
You know, I mean, it's-- it's
just was fun for me
to go up this hill
and sit over here.
It's just kind of a cool place
to hang out.
That's probably
how this happened, you know?
Um, you know, if I'm Ashfaq,
I'm-- I'm do...
Every day, I'm going here for
a walk, I'm enjoying myself,
I'm-- I'm picking up leaves
for my goats,
I'm-- I'm cutting wood,
and this is what I do.
I see a tiger or a leopard
every once in a while
really far away,
and then, one day,
I run right into one,
and I get killed.
If a pilgrim
was killed, the potential
for a riot
would have been there.
Even, like, poisoning in
retaliation or something like--
Villagers have been
known to poison tigers,
burn the forest and
the Forest Department quarters
when they sense
that the Forest Department
has not protected them
from tiger attacks.
Although T-24's surgery
was successful,
his intestinal blockage
became a chronic issue.
I believe that it's 100%
due to the claustrophobic
and the constricted area
to which the tiger
has been confined.
That is causing all this.
Tiger is a-- is an animal...
Causing
the stomach problem?
Causing the stomach problem.
Over the next
two years, Chandrabhal Singh
continues to fight for T-24
through the legal system.
On May 28th, 2017,
after his review petition
gets dismissed,
he calls it quits.
Meanwhile, back in Ranthambore,
T-57 continues to rule over
T-24's territory
and over
his mating partner, Noor.
Through T-57,
Noor produces three cubs.
Life has moved on
in Ranthambore without T-24.
Right. One hectare in this case.
Yeah.
Right.
T-24 as one of the tigers
that I love,
but I love all tigers.
Once he started killing
human beings,
then he became a threat
to his own species.
Now, to protect the species,
with a heavy heart,
we had to agree
that we had to send him away.
It doesn't mean
that I stopped loving him.
And T-24 is one of the most
beautiful specimens
of a male tiger.
I mean, I may partly
be in love with T-24.
I've loved my moments with him,
but I also know
that you have to manage a park,
that you have to find a way
to deal with local people
and their problems,
forest guards who don't want
to patrol
because of this animal.
No. No.
Right.
So maybe there is
no good guy
or bad guy
in this T-24 tragedy.
Maybe that's life.
Maybe if you look deep enough,
there's dirt on everyone.
Each side cares about T-24,
but each side
wants to tear the other down.
Was T-24 a man eater?
That will always be
up for debate.
But there is no debate
that all the attacks
occurred within his territory
inside the core area,
which is designated
sacred space for tigers by law.
T-24 was ultimately removed
because the core area of tiger
reserves are compromised,
and these small
remaining wild areas
where tigers survive
are managed by departments
that must strike a balance
between the tiger's needs,
the needs of the forest staff,
their families,
and the villagers.
In order to prevent conflict
between tigers and humans,
we must provide safe solutions
for villagers
entering the little
remaining tiger habitat
while empowering forest staff
with safer
patrolling protocols.
Without these changes,
attacks on humans
will increase.
And with that,
an increasing number of tigers
will be removed from the wild
and put in zoos.
And this is a tragedy
for future generations
because there's nothing quite
as beautiful, inspirational,
and important
as a tiger in the wild.
People travel from all over
the world to India
to see the last wild tigers.
They admire them
and photograph them
as they would works of art.
To take tigers
away from the wild
will be to take a piece
of inspiration
away from the world.
To thrive, wild tigers
require large forest expanses.
This means that saving tigers
also saves the forests,
which in turn
fights climate change,
curbs soil erosion,
purifies water,
and maintains
species diversity.
If we can give tigers
a sacred place in the world,
we can make the world
a better place for all species,
including mankind.