A Surprise Meal…

Rarely does one witness certain events of unimaginable proportions in the wild, some events that are distant from known phenomenon – witnessing a tigress feed on an adult female elephant carcass is certainly one such rare, perhaps never repeatable, a moment in the wild.

Having heard of a female adult elephant’s death due to illness, I drove towards the Dhikala grasslands and further closer to the reservoir to witness the poor elephant’s carcass first. We were told by a patrolling party that that the tigress of the grasslands had just entered a nullah after crossing the road. This drew much anticipation and hope, of the tigress maybe, discovering the elephant carcass, would proceed to feed on it.

We chose to head back towards leach khaliya, nearing the boundary of motorable roads towards the Ramganga reservoir and chose to wait it out there, knowing fully well that this was a moment of rarity that we had chanced upon - No jungle-faring wild craft or knowledge will be able to produce what we were about to witness, subject to the principle condition of the tiger discovering the elephant.

She stepped up boldly among the tuskers and other elephants present. Grasslandwali, as she is called, the matriarch of the grassland was no stranger to these parts, after all she had ruled these parts for many years, although now partly dethroned by her daughter from a previous litter.

While she was heading towards where the carcass was, she was also wary about the tuskers that were about and took a halt to cool herself in the shallow waters. The carcass wasn’t far and hence we had hoped she had seen it. The moment she stood up, the stride seemed different – it seemed eager, wanting of hunger – she had discovered the carcass, after all.

After reaching the carcass, she took her time to find places to dig in her canines. Neither is elephant skin soft to be dug into by even a tigress’ canines, and neither do tigresses eat elephants often either. Cats of the tigris kind and the pachyderms, share a sense of mutual respect and fear, not crossing paths. Rarely though, when they come in an unwavering conflict, it results in the end of one or the other.

After many attempts, she finally discovered that the snout’s inward area was the most tender and started gnawing and tugging at it to tear it off, finally making way for a feast – one that tigers rarely get. What followed was watching her tear into the this surprise meal over two days, until ungodly compulsions made the officials take the step of burying the elephant when the tiger was away.

Alas! coming back to not find her meal where it lay, all she could do was spend sometime hoping for the meal to magically appear back. But, as the day faded into oblivion, she knew that, in her world, surprise meals are ephemeral. The only reality is to move on and hunt - for she is designed to…

19 Apr 2022, Corbett Tiger Reserve, Ramnagar, Uttarakhand