Sariska: Stars in Stripes

31st January 2012

It is impossible for me not to feel excited about any tiger documentary, but my excitement is tempered with this show. Baghani is the chosen tiger, the female selected to leave Ranthambore National park in Rajasthan for the less protected back yard of Sariska. There is, I am told, astonishing footage as she fights to earn her stripes battling with steamy males, leopards and poachers. This is, in theory, a way of 'starting a new dynasty of tigers and saving the species from extinction'.

I really hope this is true but for this dynasty to succeed it will have to battle more than viewer cynicism. Firstly the female will have to 'take' to the male, secondly Baghani will have to adapt to the new 'tiger-less' surroundings - in the past animals have trekked hundreds of kilometres across unfriendly landscapes to return to their home patch. More importantly she will have to avoid the poachers’ bullet. Ranthambore hardly has a surfeit of tigers despite its huge visitor numbers and vast charity sums raised. Five years ago they were down to 18 animals before an international outcry got the park authorities to at least come close to getting their murky house in order. Sariska like Panna has NO tigers, the previously successful parks had their animals poached and parcelled piecemeal to fuel the Chinese demands for their absurd and ghastly traditional medicine.

This number of tigers is not a viable number for any future let alone a dynasty. Romantic ideas and epithets are luxurious and worthless currencies for this endangered predator, twelve years ago another romantic idea to get tigers to Africa turned into a charade as four of them ended up in the desert of the Karoo in South Africa. A South African entrepreneur and a Chinese billionaire were responsible for this freak show, deserts are not ideal habitat and four was a hopelessly small number but it got good PR I suppose, tigers are worth more than this.

The one message that must come from the programme (which of course I will be watching) should be it takes a moment to kill a tiger, it takes a world of cost and pain to replace it. Do they matter? Of course the answer is yes.   

Written by Paul Goldstein

If you're interested in the plight against tigers, click here to find out more about Paul Goldstein's fight to save these magnificent creatures. Alternatively watch him in action at the Royal Geographical Society in London on the 12th April. Click here for more details and to buy tickets.