The wild cast of Bori

On the 50th anniversary of Project Tiger, the big cat roars in Bori Wildlife Sanctuary, the oldest forest reserve in the country that's off-the-grid but is still one of the most exciting tiger hot spots, write Gustasp & Jeroo Irani

A gaur peers out of the bush in Bori.

A red earth safari trail in Bori. PHOTOS BY AUTHOR

A sloth bear crosses the safari trail in Bori

We could feel the cool breath of the forest, laced with the fragrance of wild basil, fan us. The jungle reverberated with alarm calls, betraying the presence of a predator on the prowl. The 646-sq km Bori Wildlife Sanctuary, located in the northern foothills of the Satpura mountain range in Madhya Pradesh, is an off-the-grid sanctuary yet one of the most exciting tiger hot spots in the country today. Part of the 2,200-sq-km Satpura Tiger Reserve, Bori Wildlife Sanctuary in the heart of India, has played a small but significant role in the success of Project Tiger, thanks to which the big cat was pulled back from the brink of extinction.

Indeed, carnivores shape the ecosystem, and way back in 2013, eight tigers (including three tigresses) were introduced into Bori from Panna, Bandhavgarh and Kanha National Parks. They flourished in their new habitat and multiplied, ramping up the tiger population in Bori to a healthy 35 or more. Plus, with the voluntary re-location of 17 villages from within the sanctuary, as part of the mandate of Project Tiger, grasslands now bloom on the erstwhile village sites and predator and prey again play the roles of hunter and hunted.

“Bori’s ample grassland, water bodies and prey population plus rewilding of about 20-sq km of forests have enabled the apex predator to thrive,” revealed Ramesh Pratap Singh, wildlife conservationist. In his role as Field Director and chief conservator of forests (Satpura National Park) and other pivotal roles, Singh was instrumental in the many conservation initiatives undertaken in Satpura Tiger Reserve. Indeed, under his watch, the hard-ground Barasingha (swamp deer) was also successfully introduced into Bori from Kanha and now the sanctuary has close to 100 elegant swamp deer loping around, mentioned Singh.

A forest brimming with wildlife

Bori does not assault the visitor with the sound of humming engines of multiple jeeps filled with screaming tourists, racing to catch a glimpse of the big cat. It soothes instead with the secretive rustle of a forest brimming with wildlife. While on a leisurely discovery of the sanctuary’s Churna tourism zone, we cruised through a breathtaking landscape of hills, grasslands, teak forests and limpid water bodies and were rewarded with sightings of other forest dwellers. Indeed, Bori is one of the oldest wildlife sanctuaries in India as it was notified by the British in the mid-19th century as the first forest reserve in India because of its valuable reserves of teak.

While the tiger played hide and seek, our first sighting was of a gaur, said to be the largest living bovine, all 1,000 to 1,500 kg of rippling muscles and sinew. He was handsome and majestic despite his enormous bulk, mean stare and drooling mouth and his eyes bore into us with a forbidding air of hauteur and challenge. In a slugfest, a gaur and tiger are an equal match, said our naturalist-guide Malay Malcolm Fernandes. The bovine can gore a tiger to death while an experienced feline can bring him down as well.

Watchful & majestic

We are not tiger-centric and Bori has an amazing star cast — it’s also home to the sloth bear, leopard, wild dog, bushy-tailed giant squirrel and a variety of Central Indian species of birds including migratory birds from East Europe. Indeed, the symmetry of a diaphanous spider’s web strung between the leaves of sturdy trees fascinated us as much as a crested hawk perched on a tree, watchful and majestic. Suddenly the howl of a jackal ripped the air of tranquillity followed by another howl and another…

We could see two jackals engaged in a violent skirmish in the distance. Suddenly, a sloth bear resembling a thick black ball of fur bounded into view, with a smaller fluffy ball of fur, clinging to mama’s back. The baby toppled off mama sloth bear’s back and then both started to dig around for termites. The duo then loped towards us and gave us a beady-eye glare. We froze and lowered our cameras to show respect for the over 100 kg ball of black fur. The two darted away into the forest even as a langur’s warning call tore through the air, cautioning potential prey that a leopard, tiger or a pack of wild dogs were lurking in search of a meal. The forest held its breath as did we… The tigress seductively named Laila, with two 18-month-old cubs learning to survive on their own, was probably hiding in the undergrowth, our guide said. Laila had been orphaned in Bandhavgarh and raised in an enclosure there and then released into Bori Wildlife Sanctuary.

After five minutes of anxious waiting, the two cubs appeared on the trail, 50 metres ahead of us. Their dragging stride seemed to indicate that it was a failed hunt…
That afternoon we explored the buffer zone of Jhalai and breezed past open tawny grassland, edged by thick woodlands and red-earth paths that wound sinuously around the glistening dry deciduous forest. We drove past a pea-soup-green canal on the banks of which crocodiles basked in the sun, resembling inert logs of wood. But there was more in store, our lodge where we were staying had arranged a sundowner by the backwaters of the Tawa River. As we sipped some wine, the sun blushed at its reflection in the blue waters, and the Satpura Range’s jagged contours were etched against a denim-coloured sky. Slowly, evening melted into the night. Not too far away, Bori Wildlife Sanctuary was the place of the quick and the dead as the apex predator continued its reign of terror.