Documenting the growth of 5 Tiger cubs in Pench Tiger Reserve : 2011-2013

Dear All

Let me start a new thread dedicated to documentation of the family of 6 tigers (tigress+ 5 cubs) which I am monitoring in Pench over the last 3 months. Its march 2011 now and the cubs are about 3 months old as I write today and the mother has started bringing them in the tourism routes giving the visitors to this park an unique opportunity of seeing 6 tigers together.

5 cubs is unprecedented in the history of Indian wildlife and its really hard to tell if these 5 cuties will make it to adulthood. Many obstacles will come in their way - Harsh summer, other male Tigers, poachers, other unknown and unseen dangers. I am keeping my fingers crossed for them and request all the forum members to pray for their well being and be patient to hear my story live from Pench as I try to document their growth to adulthood over the next 2 years.

My story so far:
Pench Tiger reserve is 100kms from Nagpur and I visit this park through the Turia gate on every
weekend. I run an NGO which works for wildlife
and nature conservation around tiger reserves and I have to visit pench every weekend to monitor some of our projects. I am also interested in Wildlife photography and I actively photograph the various sights that I come across during my travels.

After hearing about the existence of a tigress with 5 cubs from hearsays from the forest guards, we saw them for the first time in the first week of March when Bablu, my driver photographed them frolicking on the road.

Although not great shots, we had a big party in the evening after Bablu showed us this
evidence. This evidence got me all charged up and I formulated a plan to visit Pench on a more regular basis. My regular visits have born fruits and I will share with you the results soon.

Tighten your seat belts and let me take you to
Pench and bring you action live as it unfolds in
front of my eyes.

regards,
Dr. A Ghosh

Future King:

Wonderful.

I keep meaning to post links to some of your fantastic stuff on Team-BHP

Thank you sir.
Are you a member on bhp yourself?
After posting all this while on bhp, I thought why not start posting here to reach a larger audience.

I expect to follow these 5 cubs to adulthood and bring the story live on the forum as it unveils in front of my eyes over the next 2 years.

Dr. A Ghosh

A Tigress giving birth to 4 cubs and rearing them to adulthood is well documented. I have myself see this same female (Collarwali) giving birth to 4 cubs in 2008



and then again came across a Tigress in Tadoba last monssons with 4 cubs (2 of the cubs in tadoba are now dead under mysterious circumstances)

Coming to these 5 cubs, my driver Bablu at Pench who is a good photographer himself got the first record shots of the cubs playing in low light.



We are visiting Pench 2-3 times every week to keep a tab on the health and movement of this family.

If anyone is planning a visit to central India, Pench should be on his radar.

regards,
Dr. A Ghosh

excellent news and all the very best...

Thank you very much sir and lets pray for the well being of this family.

Yes, I am a member there, although I joined in the time after realising that plastering my real name all over the net was not necessarily a good thing. But I love "kittens" which might give you a clue!

Whether the audience you reach here will be larger, I don't know. It should certainly be wider. Whatever the statistics, however big the audience, I know there are members here who will enjoy your posts.

pleased to meet you here sir. IM sure surely give this place and the cubs a lot of exposure. As I write this, I am enroute to pench again.

Doctor, amazing post and now I would be regular to this thread, I follow you in T-BHP as well but finding you here in IM would be really great, as Nick said, you would certainly be having a lot many people here to follow your posts.

Keep up your good work and would call you someday to share my Pench experience for sure!!

Thanks Dr. Ghosh for sharing such an amazing documentary with us.

Wao, you are doing an incredible job. THe pics are awesome. I just loved those.

thanks Dr. Ghosh. I follow you in T-BHp as a visitor and i have you in my FB as well!! we are together in IM now

hoping all the cubs will survive....will keep visiting this thread tomorrow as you will be back to nagpur by tomorrow morning....please update this documentary as soon as possible!!

Great stuff Dr Ghosh...one hopes that the cubs are fine until adulthood!

great stuff Dr. Ghosh!! Looks like will have to visit Pench, awesome.

Thank you sir. your thread on Pench is also very informative. Do call / meet me whenver you are in these parts and lets exchange notes.

Thanks friends.

Thank you for the appreciation sir. I had no idea that you were on my friend list on FB . What's your name. You can pm me your details and we will catch up sometime on fb.

Sure enough, I returned back on Monday noon but did not get time till now to write here.

Prayers and the goodwill of the entire community will be detrimental in their survival. I will continue monitoring them and posting my reports here.

Surely sir. Pench is the next Bandhavgad.

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Continuing with my story at Pench:
It was almost a kind of myth till we had our first sighting of the entire family. A myth which I tried to unravel by visiting this park regularly and trying to come across this family.

After about 45 safaris spread over 2 months, I succeeded in my endeavour and got this :

The mother [Collarwali Tigress of Pench] leading her male cub (whom we have named Saharukh) to a water hole


How many are we ?


Although I had to do close to 45 drives in Pench to get this first encounter with this family, my other drives did not go waste and I made another discovery of another tigress called Badi maa - the legendary tigress of "Spy in the Jungle" fame with 1 cub



Watch the episodes of "Spy in the Jungle" - filmed at Pench here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmCfB...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ALkM...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tQFv...layer_embedded


I later have come to know from the forest department that Badi Maa has 2 cubs. More on Badi maa and her 2 cubs later.

That makes 5 + 2 cubs of 3-4 months each at Pench!!!

In the last 1 month, I have encountered this family over 20 times and got great pics and videos in process. I will share with you all whatever I come across at Pench.

regards,
Dr. A Ghosh