Tiger & Sloth Bear Confrontation

It was a normal afternoon safari. After the excitement of the morning sighting of T-54 (Matkasur), the dominant male tiger of the tourism zone we were thinking about enjoying the forest. In the morning it was a relatively late move by the big male and when we started driving back to the exit gate where he secured a place near the waterhole under the shade of a big Jamun tree. One classic picture that depicts the arrival of summer in this forest! We decided to check his whereabouts in the afternoon and planned to explore the other parts of the forest later on. We climbed up the Jamunbodi road to reach the gallery view of Jamunbodi. We reached, he was still lying down and the guest was expressing his disbelief about how lazy a tiger can be. Five hours! and he was still there… Then suddenly within five-minutes of our arrival he stood up, looked behind and started walking towards the back. I was telling the guest that it was a good decision that we decided to check on him.

Little did we know what was in store for us for the next half-an-hour. As soon as he went away from our view a long stress call of a sloth bear was heard. We got alert and decided to check. We were overwhelmed by the face-off sight of a mother sloth bear and a sub adult sloth bear with T-54. The desperate mother sloth bear came in between T54 and her sub adult. A royal rumble started. The sub adult left the place with the agony of loosing its mother. We could hear the deep sounds coming from the back while the mamma bear showed us what it takes to be a mother and how desperate a mother can be to defend her offspring. T-54 tried his best to knock her down and there was moment of 5 minutes when we thought the mother had given up as she lay still in the trap of T-54. Then the magic started one or two ‘Jhatkas’ (sudden movements) ensured us the mother bear was not giving up and then she got herself free from the jaw and paw of T-54. With great disbelief we saw her giving a full aggressive blow to T-54 and the unique design of the sloth bear hair allowed her to prevent T-54 from giving her a killer bite. With the evolutionary adaptive strategy the bear’s most vulnerable part of the body is its snout and the chest. She rolled into a fur ball and didn’t allow T-54 to access that part of her body. Then with a full thrush she gave a tight slap and went away from the T-54.

For this entire period of the show there was not a single sound from the jeeps around. Everyone was glued to the fighting duo and the air was filled with the sound of the Bear and the tiger. A sighting of a lifetime indeed which will remain etched in the memory of all the spectators who were there.