Imagine The India That Can Be
Mountain Echoes
Tiger Book
Billy Arjan Singh
Tara had now been out of my care for nearly a year and it was becoming increasingly difficult to recognize her pugmarks. It was therefore essential to get a photograph which would prove beyond doubt that the tigress in the neighbourhood was indeed the one that I had reared at Tiger Haven. The stripe pattern in tiger's changes with growth and age but the cheek stripes and the eye spots, though asymmetrical, are immutable. This is an anthology on the tiger in India. The contributors come from various walks of life (conservation, wildlife, ecology, photography and film-making) bound by a common interest in the tiger. Jim Corbett was a hunter turned conservationist who edited India's first magazine on the subject; his Chowgarh Tigers' is the sole hunting story written in a different age of changing circumstances by a man who forsaw the possible extinction of the tiger, but reacted violently because of the involvement of the human element. Nicholas Courtney is a writer, broadcaster and documentary film-maker. Valmik Thapar is a photographer, documentary film-maker and writer. Fiona Sunquist is a wildlife writer and photographer. Mel Sunquist is a wildlife ecologist. In the modern context the extinction of this glamourous cat is a spectre that haunts all of us. The magnitude of this loss will make itself felt only when the species is in limbo. It behoves civilised humanity to ensure the tiger's survival, and the great forests he needs to live in, and of which he is the symbol.
Arjan Singh (1917–2010) in his activities has spanned both eras of Hunting and Conservation. From his farm, Tiger Haven, in Uttar Pradesh, where he stayed from 1959 to 2010, he extensively studied the varied wildlife of the area, and reared and successfully returned to the wild, a tigress and two leopards. A spokesman for the tiger, he waged many a crusade against environmental destruction. In recognition of his field work, he was awarded the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal in the year 1976.
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